


To Change A Sombre Morrow

by Leonawriter



Series: Sombre Morrow verse [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: (Genesis has it), Canon-Typical Violence, Dysfunctional Friendships Ahoy, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Travel, but give them credit for trying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-02-11 06:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 62,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12929763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: The gift of the goddess could be argued to take on many forms, it was said. Genesis had already experienced it in the form of a second chance once, when he had asked and expected it. This time, his second chance was far less obvious, far more time consuming, and had a great many more far-reaching consequences.Perhaps this time, his role could be the hero, even with the goddess as his only witness.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this came about because I love time travel fics and I love FF7 time travel fics but although I love Cloud time travelling my mind threw up but 'what if it was Genesis instead' - partially, I wonder, because I'd been having a hard time imagining any Sephiroth from the future regaining himself enough to want to change the past for the *better*.
> 
> I have a few vague ideas for the missing adventure that Genesis will be referring to occasionally, but it might just be small scenes and glimpses into what goes on, rather than a long-term thing.
> 
> As for the main story itself, I've got a specific idea of where I want to go with it in some places, but as for others it might have a few time skips.

The last thing he saw was blinding light, and deep within it, the impression of her face - the face of the  _goddess herself_ , her immaculate beauty something that he had never forgotten in all this time, smiling at him - encouraging him. It was an indulgence... but also a challenge.

He understood her expressions as well now as he had before, when that one disappointed look had made it clear that the one thing that had kept him going for the past six years had been  _wrong_ , that he had not been the hero, that he had  _never_ been the hero, only mistaking himself as such as he walked further into a prison of his own making, and required someone such as Zack Fair, a disgraced fugitive who no longer even had any reason to have a positive tie to ShinRa, to remind him what his pride as a SOLDIER even  _was._

Then, even her face was lost to him as he fell, the pure white of her holy light fading into the more natural blue of a clear day, not a cloud in sight.

The wind whistled in his ears, and for a moment he thought that he could hear something, a sound in the distance, but the wind took it away from him. Whatever was happening, it was no matter to him, no business of his-

Closer. 

The wind turned. Smoke - something that smelled of burned metal and sparks flying.

He was holding his sword. The feeling of its weight in his hand a reflex as he tightened what had been a loosened grip on the weapon he had lost so recently.

_"-Genesis!"_

His name, he realised as he fixed his freefall into something more manageable. And spoken by one whose voice he would know anywhere.

_The lifestream? No, something else!_

He wasn't dead yet. There was something he had to do - if there were not, then what else had the Goddess wanted of him?

_"-ephiroth, stop this! Something's wrong!"_

His mind shuddered, instincts taking over from a trained swordsman's technique and finesse, that and the fact that his body knew how to fight even when his mind was no longer there.

Something he had become _intimately_ acquainted with, recently, and had  _no desire_ to return to, even for one  _moment_.

_Sephiroth._

Silver hair and silver sword appeared, green eyes glinting at him as though he had called them with the thought of the name. His world narrowed down to one thing - the man in front of him. No other sounds, no other opponents.

They had been  _friends_ , once. Genesis was no longer fool enough to say that he had no fault in their downfall, the three of them. He had been afraid, and desperate, and full of self-loathing. A dangerous combination.

His own sword rang out against Sephiroth's Masamune, and if he noted that the man was being more reserved than usual, the words he _was_ using seeming more curious, as if to test him rather than taunt him, then that merely helped him focus better on what he was  _doing_. 

His feet touched something solid - not ground, at least he didn't think so, but it gave cease to the sensation of falling, and as they stared at each other, Genesis' mako-blue eyes meeting Sephiroth's Jenova-green, it almost seemed as though time stood still, or slowed down, even though he knew that no Slow spell had been cast.

A third sword was added to their stand-off. Lesser quality, something that was bound not to last.

He didn't pay it any attention, just as he hadn't for quite some time now - and that was his downfall.

 _Something_ changed, and time began moving normally again, but somehow he was now gasping on the floor (a floor, a flat surface, not something round and hollow) and blinking in the bright lights (electric, with no blue sky in sight) and, worst of all-

His hand reached for his shoulder, and came away  _red._

He'd been here before. This room. This fight. This  _injury_ \- he'd been here  _before_.

_The goddess, looking at him with encouragement and indulgence in her eyes - but also a challenge._

He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, his vision blurring at the edges in the aftermath of being thrown into what his body had been convinced was the middle of a life-or-death match, and then forcibly brought back down to earth again.

_"My friend, do you fly away now? To a world that abhors you and I?"_

His lips opened to mouth the words, but he was uncertain whether he ended up speaking them loudly enough for even a SOLDIER's hearing to pick up before the darkness took him.

_All that awaits you is a sombre morrow, no matter where the winds may blow..._

He wished, a fleeting thing, that the goddess was more prone to communicating in more than expressions and deeds. 

...

_"If you could go back. To the past, and change even one thing... would you?"_

_The sun had been rising - a new dawn over the ruins of Midgar. And yet, even with the light hitting the fallen buildings, only a rare few times had it ever appeared even slightly like nothing had changed._

_The place had been levelled during Meteorfall, and become a literal war zone when the WRO had waged their war against Deepground._

_They were both sitting at the edge of a building, the height not holding any threat for either of them. For Genesis especially, he had lost the remainder of his fear of high places and falling when he had first learned that he could fly._

_He turned to Cloud, who was staring resolutely forward and toward the sky, one boot lightly kicking the bricks of the roof they were on, as though he hadn't just asked that kind of question._

_Genesis had smiled, then._

_"My soul, corrupted by vengeance, hath endured torment. To find the end of the journey in my own salvation, and your eternal slumber."_

_Perhaps it was right, that they would be the ones to ask such things of each other. Everyone else was gone. Everyone who had been involved to that degree, at least. And no one else had quite the same experience with questioning their own humanity, and coming out somehow cracked and broken in places, but still in one piece, more or less. Despite everything, neither of them had truly lost who they were._

_"Does that mean you would, or... you think you've done enough?"_

_Cloud, Genesis had slowly started to realise, was the kind of person who didn't really care for the art of drama, but never said that Genesis was taking the play too seriously, or too far - but he also questioned what Genesis' intent was. Something that not many had thought to ask._

_He reached up to flick a few errant hairs out of his eyes, and watched as the sun's rays reached the Shinra building itself at long last, the reds and yellows of daybreak making it seem almost as though the building were on fire._

_Fleetingly, he wished that it were, and he had been the one to set that fire. It would have been satisfying._

_"I have regrets enough that there's plenty I'd change. If the opportunity presented itself, of course. And yet, those regrets are in the past, along with everything that caused them. For myself, there is nothing I would go to such drastic measures for." He turned back to Cloud, smile on his face once again. "And you? You were the one to bring this up, were you not? You owe me an answer of your own."_

_Cloud ducked his head, and Genesis almost - almost - regretted having asked. A shadow fell over them for just a moment, before the blond not-SOLDIER smiled again._

_"I'd never be done with just one thing, if it was to make the future better for everyone. But... all the people I care about are safe and okay, and things are improving." Cloud's shoulders shrugged, awkward as a teenaged trooper even though he was in his twenties now. "So, I'm okay with things as they are."_

...

_"-can't say you didn't notice something wrong. You could have stopped, like I was trying to tell you to."_

Reality came back to him lazily, with muted voices sounding as though they were being heard through a great distance, but up close at the same time.

 _"I did notice. And I deemed it unwise to simply 'stop', as you would have had me done. What would have happened then, Angeal? Two of us injured, instead of just one."_ The old pain in Genesis' shoulder spiked with Sephiroth's voice, although something was wrong about it - almost as though it had been reopened, like an enemy picking at an old weak spot.

It wasn't just that, though. Something about Sephiroth's  _voice_ sounded off-

_"You're saying-?"_

_"Some trauma he had preferred not to speak of, for the sake of his pride, perhaps? Whatever the cause, our fight turned from a training room spar, to..."_

Realisation struck him like a blow to the chest, along with all of the disjointed memories of the events leading up to his falling unconscious in such a way. He gasped, cutting off whatever Angeal might have said in response.

His attempt to sit up on his own was hindered by Angeal's hand on his good shoulder. No longer in the midst of a fight for what he had believed was for his very life, he had the first chance to take the time to understand what this meant - this was Angeal as he  _remembered_ him. Not a copy. Not even his single white wing flaring out on one side.

The Buster Sword, still attached to his back.

 _There are no dreams, no honour remains..._  the words no longer held the weight they once had. The arrow had not yet left the bow of the goddess.

"You know, I wonder if Sephiroth might be right. First that fight, now this - you should talk to someone about this. One of us, or one of the psychiatrists. It is their job, after all. And maybe get someone to have a look at that shoulder and-"

Genesis didn't even let him finish, eyes narrowing as he shoved Angeal out of his way in order to not only sit properly, but also stand. A fainting spell was humiliating for a decorated SOLDIER First Class, but he was no  _invalid_. Even suffering from the later stages of degradation, he had never been  _that._

"No." 

They both turned to look at him, and perhaps it should have hurt how  _alien_ an expression of honest concern was on Sephiroth's face, after so long of either expecting it to be nothing but pity, complete disinterest, or only the slightest attempt at pretending that even a drop of compassion could exist.

"If it is for your own good," Sephiroth said slowly - cautiously, unmoving - with that same expression still on his face, "then you are the only one that you are inconveniencing by choosing to decline."

"The  _last_ thing that I want, or would be  _good_ for me, is the idea of being  _poked at_ , and especially not by  _scientists."_

Being at Hollander's mercy for the better part of seven years purely on the desperate chance that the scientist would find a cure for the degradation had been bad enough, especially on the realisation that no cure was forthcoming. Then, despite his hope that his restoration at the hand of the goddess would be the end of his trials... Deepground had taken him.

He had had far more than  _enough_ of scientists for one lifetime.

It was the slight widening of Sephiroth's eyes, the minute nod, that put him off balance, however. Even remembering what he knew of his...  _friend's_ past, he hadn't expected to be reminded of it in such a  _human_ way, opposed to the wings of destruction and control that he had become accustomed to.

"Very well then. As long as that is your decision."

And then both he and Angeal were staring after Sephiroth's back as the silver-haired general swept out of the training room as the repair techs started to file in, fire extinguishers in hand.

 _It'll heal up soon enough,_ he told Angeal on the way out, using all of his willpower to not put his hand to the old (new) wound.  _We've all of us had worse on the battlefield. This is nothing._

The words turned to ash in his mouth. Pretty little lies. A dramatic sort of poetry, in that it was almost as though he were repeating a previous verse, but this was his life, and not a poem, or script, except in one way - that like LOVELESS, what had once been his immutable past was now open to...  _variation._


	2. Chapter 2

Back in his room, his hands move without his even needing to think, the actions of undressing his shoulder, cleaning the wound, and then bandaging it as well as he was able, being ones that he could do in his sleep, or even, once the degradation had gone far enough that his system had stopped being able to metabolise alcohol as quickly as it should have, drunk.

Most SOLDIERS were able to become light-headed at best and woozy at worst before the toxins were flushed from their systems by mako; not so those afflicted with degradation - although all it had taken was one sore hangover to cure him of the idea that drowning his sorrows was a good idea at all in the first place.

That the movements were so well practiced was something that he had to remind himself that he should feel  _grateful_ for. That, and the fact that unlike the first time he had received the wound, this time he was bothering to dress it at all, rather than wait for mako to do what it was supposed to, what it would not, this time, do. 

That he didn't have to think about them meant that it didn't matter that his thoughts were either moving far too fast for him to have focused otherwise, or not at all, the numbness of horror sinking in at the realisation that he would potentially have to live through his degradation a second time, with no knowledge of when to expect it to  _end-_

Genesis stared at his hands, still stained red with his own blood from the wound that had not yet closed, and wished that they would stop the minute shaking that they had started doing ever since crashing from his earlier adrenaline rush.

 _"My friend, your desire is the bringer of life, the gift of the goddess,"_ he recited quietly.

Yet he had received _that_ gift once already. Who knew if he would be able to receive restoration once again

Perhaps, his fate was tragedy, then - the unsung hero, destined to die before his time. The thought sat uncomfortably with him, though, not one that he wished to think upon too deeply.

He needed a plan. He needed something he could use to put his mind away from the harsh reality of degradation, and onto something more useful.

The root of it all began with the scientists, of course. Hojo, and Hollander himself. Yet it did not stop there, as his experiences with Cloud Strife had proven; Sephiroth's 'mother', Jenova, the being that both Project S and Project G had been born from, was just as dangerous. If not infinitely more so.

But those were things that he would have to deal with in due time, and he would likely be forced to wait for some sort of opportunity to take advantage of. 

Angeal, he realised, as he washed his hands free of blood and redressed himself. He would need to be honest with the man at some point, since they shared the same origins, if not the same affliction. Which also meant, although he grimaced at the thought, admitting that his wound was worse than he'd played it off as.

The first time he'd informed Angeal of their shared condition, the status they both held as _experiments_ rather than ordinary yet enhanced human beings, he had been conflicted enough himself that he all he had been able to do was share that state of confusion, leading Angeal to defect himself. He had to wonder, now that it wasn't merely academic reasoning on events long past that he could no longer change, if his greater understanding would change anything this time around, if at all.

 _Look what I can do,_ he remembered having said in Wutai. A meeting not so much of chance as it had been that he had known that either Angeal or Sephiroth would come after him, to return him to Shinra or to leave him behind, a body, and desperate not to end the encounter with either.  _This is what I am. My life - our lives - were a lie. What honour do you owe Shinra, if this is what they did to you?_

Words had always been his strong point. Both in battle with his spells and superior materia casting, and in his free time, studying language and poetry and LOVELESS. As much as he loved them, he wondered if perhaps he had turned his words into weapons too well, flinging them sharp-edged and with little thought to consequence. 

He he attempted to push the memory of the Nibelheim reactor, and the conflict, the distaste at his very presence on Sephiroth's face, the last truly  _human_ expression that the man had worn, away. That was the last thing he needed, when the Sephiroth he had interacted with earlier had been so very different.

Back in his normal time, after all of the incidents that everyone had lived through, it wasn't thought of as odd to forget that Sephiroth had once been a hero that people had looked up to - that he,  _Genesis_ , had once looked up to - but it was instead the fact that they had once been  _friends_ that he had almost forgotten.

He could no longer remember what he had done at this point, when he had first received this wound. It had faded in time into a vague mess of increasing internal panic and heated discussions and arguments with Hollander, often only at times when they were sure that they would not be overheard.

He would not, however, be walking that path once again, and he found his feet took him in a different direction.

...

That he would head for the materia room, and from there the closest training room that wasn't in use, would have been known as the obvious course of action Genesis would take, if anyone present had known the entire story around what he had been through, and how he was now unexpectedly in the past.

Fortunately for him however, the Angeal and Sephiroth who were here with him now had no idea that he wasn't exactly the same Genesis that they had started the spar with, that he had gone through far more than either of them could as yet even begin to imagine, and nor did they have any clue as to why he might want to re-familiarise himself with a large number of materia.

Because they had no reason to believe he would be doing anything other than resting, recuperating, and wondering why his wound wasn't healing, he had no reason to believe that they would interrupt his impromptu self-imposed training session. 

A training session that was just as much to help him sort things out in his mind as anything else.

Targets were shattered with Thundaga when further thoughts of killing certain scientists came up, and - the memory from not even half an hour ago of Sephiroth looking  _concerned_ for him after he had, for all intents and purposes, tried to kill his 'friend' - he hadn't anticipated the amount of strength that went into the Firaga he cast, that absolutely  _incinerated_ another, at the thought of what, exactly, he would do to  _Jenova_ when he found 'her'.

It was difficult to pinpoint at first, the reason why he felt such anger at the alien lifeform. But it didn't take long - although he'd moved on to moving targets in the form of mid-level monsters - by the time he had.

Sephiroth, like Angeal, had been  _his_ friend. The General had been  _his_ rival to best,  _his_ obstacle to overcome in the face of everything, in order to gain that sense of respect, the kind that had the papers calling Sephiroth a  _war hero_ back before his fall.

He had meant to goad Sephiroth into a defection from grace, into helping him find a cure for his degradation, or even just never returning like Angeal had done, as they both realised how Shinra had  _used_ them.

The response he had received had not been entirely expected in its vehement disgust, but he had stuck around, just in case - something far easier to do in a mountainous region when one had the ability of flight than it really ought to be. 

The fire had been more of a shock than he had liked to let on. Sephiroth had never, after all, been one to go outside of the mission objectives. If a civilian wasn't a part of his instructions, then he simply preferred not to deal with them at all. He always had been like that. While they'd been friends, he'd thought of it as an extension of Sephiroth's cold detachment and condescending nature; now, with the knowledge he had gained from hearing people talk of the past in a more objective manner, he knew that it was that the man simply hadn't had any idea how to interact with anyone other than a Shinra employee at all.

And that bit of uncharacteristic behaviour had been well  _before_ any of his more... recent adventure.

The simulation faded for the second time that day back into the shape of the training room, and he turned to see Angeal coming toward him with a frown. Just  _marvellous._

"Are you sure you should be putting so much strain on your shoulder so soon after you hurt it? You can't have forgotten that even  _mako_ needs more time than this to fully heal. At the rate you're going, you'll tear it open again in no time flat."

Genesis couldn't be bothered to hide his grimace. He  _had_ forgotten how fresh the wound was while he'd been training, yes, but he wasn't about to  _admit_ that. 

"I hurt my shoulder in an accident, Angeal. It's something I can work through. Training with it isn't exactly going to kill me," he added, although in retrospect he hoped that the bleak humour and the way that he couldn't meet his friend's eyes as he said that weren't picked up on.

"Hmph."

For a moment, it looked like the man was just going to stay there, rooted to the spot and examining him until he divulged all of the world's mysteries. But then he shook his head, and left the training room. Genesis grumbled internally at having to cut his training short, but the truth of what Angeal had said coupled with a sentimental wish to simply see more of his friend now that he was, in essence,  _alive again_.

Angeal dying hadn't been his plan, either. 

It was starting to occur to him now, with all the opportunities Genesis was having to see things as they had been before he had defected, before Sephiroth had gone to Nibelheim, before he had woken up from his time in Deepground and seen the ruin of Midgar that Meteor had left, that on his first time living through all of this, that he had not, as such, had much in the way of a 'plan'. Nor had he thought what little he'd had of one through. 

The thought was mollifying, to say the least of what it implied about  _him_.

Zack's presence in the hallway was one that made him almost stumble and  _did_ make him stare. He was lucky that he could pass off the stare for the fact that the Second Class was doing squats, instead of simply waiting in a  _normal manner._

...

_The Sector Five church wasn't somewhere that he'd had any reason to come anywhere near for several weeks, simply because he'd had no reason to. Unlike how many others seemed to have this major attachment to the place, he had none._

_It was the fact that he had proved himself their ally several times over and had then proceeded to say that he had no desire to simply stay in one place, that had caused Cloud to share a look of some sort of understanding with Tifa and Yuffie, and they had headed into the ruins of Midgar._

_It had been eerie the first time he had flown up and up and far enough that he had been in a place that had once been populated and busy, when he had been carrying Weiss - or rather, Weiss' body, no matter what else had been involved there - to freedom. In the next several trips he'd taken, and some of them being prolonged, the feeling of walking, flying, and fighting through a city full of ghosts had never ceased._

_Walking into the church felt peaceful, in a sad sort of way. But it also set his hair on end, the sensation he felt around the rest of the city increasing exponentially in this one building._

_"Don't step on the flowers," he heard Cloud say, and in the acoustics of the old building it echoed, so that for a split moment Genesis could have sworn he had heard three people speaking, instead of just one._

_His attention, however, had not been on the flowers, for better or ill, and he had barely took note as Tifa explained that the water was what cured Geostigma, the disease that he had essentially slept through._

_"Did you know him?" Cloud had asked, once the two girls had gone again. He had been keeping an obvious eye on him up until then, and now it was clear why._

_Genesis had snorted, once._

_"You could say that. I tried to kill him several times." Cloud had given him an unimpressed, flat look, but by that point they were both aware of how... unimpressive his previous actions were to the blond hero of Midgar. "I never succeeded, of course. And I only ever tried because he was in my way. The last I saw, he seemed perfectly well."_

_Which had been in Banora, of course. Which was also how he had recognised Cloud at all, because of how Cloud had been the one with Sephiroth's cells, and he had been so, so sure for so long that only Sephiroth's cells could have cured him._

_The irony of it hadn't escaped him, then._

_For a while, neither of them had said anything._

_"It was Angeal's first," he'd finally felt the need to add. "Although he rarely used it. Kept saying something about wear, tear, and rust - but then, he did come from a poorer family then mine, I suppose."_

_Cloud had flinched, just enough to be noticed. Genesis raised an eyebrow, sure that it was going to be something interesting, and the blond sighed._

_"I left it... out there, for a long time, after Meteor was dealt_ _with. On the outcropping. That's... where you first found me, actually."_

_Where we first fought, Genesis remembered filled in. Cloud was nothing if not a master of the understatement, sometimes even more so than Angeal had been, or- no, some things were best not brought up, or even thought of._

_It didn't need to be said, however, that the sword could not at all have done well there. Wear, tear, and rust... it must have suffered them all. He vaguely wondered what Angeal would think._

_"He never made it back to Midgar," he'd said, mostly because he had figured out their destination from the location given, and various comments that Cloud and his acquaintances had both made and let slip in the past - weeks? Had it only been that long?_

_"No."_

_The word had been final. Nothing more would be forthcoming. Cloud had left not long after that, letting him have some private time in the church with the water, the flowers, and the Buster Sword that had become some sort of legacy of heroes._

_It had been odd. In all his travels in search of a cure to his degradation, Zack had simply been an obstacle, in his way, and later on simply someone who had something that he had wanted. He had even attempted to kill the boy the last time they met, before learning that the gift of the goddess had never been as simple or one dimensional as he had thought. But learning of his death, when he had wondered more than once why there had been pockmarks in the nearby rock formations... He supposed he now knew, but all it left him feeling was numb, and somewhat helplessly empty._

_..._

He watched Zack - Zack Fair,  _alive_ , and without doubt just as much the excitable puppy without the ability to focus that he remembered Angeal telling him about so frequently, once upon a time - attempt to do the exact same training that he himself had done not even minutes previous, and as he did so nostalgia and, dare he say it, awe and relief at seeing him alive, gave way to something far more familiar.

 _Frustration_.

Eventually, agitatedly tapping his fingers against his arm did no good, and he lost his temper, storming in and informing Zack that his casting was  _abysmal_. That he even only with first level spells, he needed to improve his accuracy, his efficiency, and his casting time. 

When Angeal, still in the training room they'd gone back to, asked if Genesis was making some attempt at stealing his apprentice, he had merely asked which of the two of them was better at using materia, and that he was unwilling to let such inadequacies continue. Angeal made no further arguments.

It was one thing to have to push aside a Second Class SOLDIER who shouldn't have poked his nose in where it didn't belong, mission or no mission. It was  _quite another_ to see the SOLDIER that had defeated him  _several times_ as someone who could barely cast a decent Fire spell. It was simply  _demeaning._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it looks like the flashbacks are going to be a regular appearance now! Or, at least, whenever they're relevant.
> 
> The second part is actually re-written from a first draft, and when I deleted it and started from scratch the entire rest of the chapter followed like I'd opened up a dam. Which, given I'd needed to sleep, was indeed rather damning.


	3. Chapter 3

"You should be careful," Angeal's voice says at his shoulder, far too amused to be a memory. "At this rate, the other Seconds are going to start thinking that if he gets promoted soon, it'll be because of favouritism, rather than actual talent."

Genesis snorted. With how difficult Zack had been the previous day, he'd made sure to tell Angeal what he was planning after the Second had gone off to do other things, so that when he appeared in the morning with a low-level Fire materia and a target, at least one of them wouldn't find it unexpected and Zack would be unable to say that there was anywhere else he could be.

Currently, the boy was making dismal attempts at hitting the centre of the target even once, let alone ten times in a row, as he'd asked for.

"If it's favouritism your'e worried about, you should have thought about that before you took him on. As things stand now,  _no honour remains, the arrow has left the bow of the goddess_."

Angeal rolled his eyes with a smile at the use of LOVELESS in such a mundane setting, but as far as  _he_ was concerned, it was apt.

They stood in companionable silence for a while, watching as Zack grew frustrated with his training and lack of success - all of which were down to, as Angeal would put it, the boy's lack of focus. 

Then again, he had never lacked focus when fighting  _him._ Perhaps it was simply that he lacked the necessary motivation. He wasn't, however, about to make a target of himself merely to prove a point.

His thoughts had begun to wander towards his situation, and the fact that sooner or later, events were going to begin to unfold as they had before, whether he changed things or not. He did intend to, but the important thing was  _how_ \- how to change anything in any conceivable way that could have things turn out better than they had, and not  _worse_.

He could desert again, but simply choose not to ally himself with Hollander. That would give him the time and space with which to choose where to direct his energy the best; but of course the other side of that was that he would be classified as an enemy of Shinra again, and he would have neither resources nor allies. So perhaps that was not the best idea. 

Which left his only other option, which was to stay where he was. In the heart of the monster itself, within the reach of the doctors and scientists who had made their lives hell ever since before they were even  _born_. Yet at the same time, it would mean staying closer to Angeal, and monitoring how well - or not - he adapted to the information he would inevitably have to share at some point, because it was either that, or leave it to Hollander. It would also mean being able to keep an eye on Sephiroth, as well. As if just  _keeping an eye on him_ would be enough, from everything that he had seen, heard, and experienced.

It was almost a shame that the second option was already looking to be the one with the least bleak outcome. If he _had_ defected, then he would not have needed to keep any of his more unique traits to himself. It had barely been a full twenty-four hours and he was already missing the ability to fly, with the wind against his face and through feathers that both were and weren't made of anything physical, that - despite logic and his memory of how things had gone the first time he had discovered it following his injury - he could feel behind his shoulder, phantom feathers itching to be spread-

He crossed his arms with an irritated frown, only to wince when the movement pulled at the injury that was still there under the dressings that he had reapplied earlier that morning.

In the training room, Zack had a slight loss of control of the Fire spell, and could be seen waving his fingers as though he were attempting a particular kind of cultural dance that he might have seen at some point.

"...Genesis?"

He recognised that tone of voice. He didn't like it - he never had. That was Angeal's  _I know you won't like what I'm about to say_ voice, and he was always right. Genesis never did like what Angeal had to say at these times. He had a feeling that this one wouldn't be any different.

"I ran into Sephiroth again after letting Zack go," Angeal said. Genesis hoped that the way he had tensed at Sephiroth's name could be put down to their fight the previous day, rather than anyone gaining any suspicion of its  _true_ cause. "He was relieved to hear that you seem to be doing well enough, but he has his concerns. I can't say that I blame him, either."

_Marvellous._

"And?"

Angeal sighed. For a moment the sound and the fact that the presence beside him was _real_ reminded him of the number of times when he had missed his friend over the years, almost thought that he was right there, but it had just been an idealised wish, not a person with the ability to irritate him as much as this.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and focused on breathing normally.

"He suggested before that you might have had some sort of... bad experience the last time you were stationed in Wutai. Or one some mission you hadn't told us about. And he asked me to say this, because he's worried that there was something about  _him_ that set you off back there. Which is ridiculous - I've seen him put you into one of those moods where you just want to knock him off the top spot, but that was something else."

 _You have no idea,_ Genesis thought, stonily keeping his eyes on Zack and continuing to not facing Angeal.  _None. And I would much prefer to keep it that way._

"Something like that," he grit out instead when he realised that Angeal wasn't about to leave the topic alone if he didn't give  _some_ sort of answer. "I'd prefer not to talk about it, if you don't mind."

He expected some form of resistance. Instead, there was a pause, and then Angeal's hand briefly rested on his good shoulder. It gave him an unfamiliar, vaguely discomforting feeling. Angeal thought that he was being honest and opening up; what he had said wasn't entirely wrong, but it also allowed Angeal to believe what he wished.

"All right," Angeal said, who then started moving toward the training room's door, before pausing and turning back to look at Genesis over his shoulder. "I'm going to go and give him a break to catch his breath and cool off. You could... at least tell Sephiroth there isn't some major problem between you, though. Especially if it isn't his fault."

_My friend, the fates are cruel. There are no dreams, no honour remains... truly, it is apt. You truly don't have any idea what you ask of me._

_..._

_"Don't be ridiculous!" He almost could have laughed, but the fact that it hadn't been all that long since one of their number, currently glaring at him with narrowed mako-blue eyes, had brought him to a standstill in a duel and none of them looked all that amused with themselves held him off. "The last time I ever saw him, I tried to warn him about what we were - what Shinra **made**  _ _us. Do you want to know what he told me? He said that no matter if I was lying or telling the truth, that I could rot. He was one of the most infuriatingly loyal people I knew!"_

_There'd been a quiet tension in the air. The creak of leather as someone's gloved hand was tightened._

_He'd been missing something. And he never liked being unaware of anything - that usually meant secrets, and secrets meant danger._

_"And when was that, huh?" The heavy thud of the large, black man's gun hand hit the table. "'Cause it looks to me like you're runnin' on out of date info!"_

_It had taken him a moment to piece everything together. The years he'd lost. The years when each day went by with no new information, and both he and Hollander fuelling each other's feelings of despair at their ever more increasingly impending deaths._

_"Nine years," he'd said eventually, tapping agitatedly on the table. "I'm fairly sure it has been, by now."_

_It had been late Autumn - or was it early winter? Either way, the season had seemed right._

_For whatever reason, several of the people in Tifa's bar had stilled, and those who were not already staring at him turned to do so. Usually, he had no objections at all to being the centre of attention, and never had done even while a fugitive of Shinra that the company had declared legally dead._

_This, however, had given him the distinct impression of his back being against the wall, and with a ceiling above him, that meant there was no way out, if these people had heard something they didn't like. The door had been blocked by the man in red and black, who he'd vaguely recognised as the same Vincent Valentine who must have been the one central to Deepground's destruction._

_"What?"_

_He'd known that snapping like that at people who'd appeared to be just as competent as SOLDIERs in their own way as far as he could tell was not a wise move, but he'd been tense, he had been since before he had stepped foot inside of the place, and the current atmosphere wasn't helping._

_"Nibelheim." The single word had been spoken quietly, and although softly said held great weight. "It'd be about nine years ago now. You were there, weren't you?"_

_Cloud had seated himself opposite him at the start, and now his blue eyes were hard, inscrutable, shut off._

_It would have been easy to lie, and say that he had not been there - but it would have also been too easily found out. And it would simply backfire on him when he was, inevitably, found out._

_"Yes," he'd said, meeting Cloud's eyes._

_"And you thought that was a good thing to say to someone like... **him**?"_

_Genesis had shrugged with all the sense of purpose of a performer. "My soul, corrupted by vengeance, hath endured torment... to find the end of the journey in my own salvation and your eternal slumber." A smile, though he'd had to force it. A hand to his face to brush away the hair that wasn't bothering his eyes, to give him an excuse to break eye contact. "I can no longer say that my life has been free of mistakes."_

_Cloud, eyes still stormy, had looked away and crossed his arms. Someone else had huffed noisily._

_"Sephiroth was the one who killed President Shinra." It had been Tifa who spoke then, sat next to Cloud and sending a concerned look the blond's way every so often. "He's also the one who called down Meteor, and destroyed Midgar. He - he killed Aerith."_

_The name had seemed familiar somehow, but not enough to remember who it might be, or care past the fact that these people all seemed to. Genesis had been far more interested in the fact that they'd said things like 'called down Meteor' and 'destroyed Midgar', and twice now, at that._

_"He was reported Killed In Action - and trust me, I was, and I know that SOLDIERs who are only written off can't be that quiet."_

_There was a certain amount of dark humour in the fact that Shinra still sent its supposedly deceased and/or defected employees emails. Not least the fact that he'd seen one for his and Angeal's own deaths, long before he'd even been showing any grey hairs, let alone Angeal._

_"That..." Cloud, again, and still not looking in his direction. "No, that was true."_

_"Cloud-" Tifa reached over, putting her hand on Cloud's arm, and the former trooper closed his eyes for just one moment, but seemed to be strengthened by the woman's presence._

_When he'd opened them, they'd been burning brightly again._

_"The thing is, he came back. Because of Jenova. If you were there, you should know about her, right? And that's not it. Just last year, he came back again. It'd be nice to think he's gone this time, but..." Something had seemed to haunt the blond, making him tense for a moment, before he breathed slowly out again. "I'd prefer to be prepared."_

_It had seemed ridiculous, at the time. At one point, he had been prepared to take the world down with him, if he could not find a cure of some kind for his degradation. He had terrorised and murdered and stolen in order to aid Hollander in his research - research that had all come to naught, in the end. And yet here, it was Sephiroth who had done what Genesis had only made grand plans for, Sephiroth who was remembered, Sephiroth who was feared, in that way..._

_Sephiroth, who apparently would not stay dead._

_Perhaps a number of years ago he might have felt hot fury at the thought that even in these_ _things, even after all of this time, Sephiroth still far outstripped him. Had achieved so much._

_Instead, he could remember wondering about the amount of anger that had been in Sephiroth's voice when he had told Genesis to rot._

_..._

He wouldn't say that he had made a habit of avoiding anything in his life other than death, but Sephiroth had, at some point, gained that vaunted position. 

Genesis had found himself taking on a simple monster hunting job that even Fair could have done that very afternoon after Angeal's talk with him; the last thing he had wanted was to turn a corner and be unexpectedly met with silver hair and green eyes, and react...  _inappropriately._

He soon found that the mission was harder than he had anticipated. More because the memories of the destroyed corpse of Midgar sometimes ghosted over his vision, leaving him blinking in the light that was dimmer than what he'd become used to, and losing his way in streets he hadn't walked down in  _years_ , than because of the monsters.

Monsters, he could deal with.  _These_ monsters, at least.

By the time he was returning back to the Shinra he had come to several realisations. The first of which was that there was no way in hell he was defecting again - freedom of movement was most assuredly  _not_ worth giving up that he knew for a fact that he was heading back to somewhere at least reasonably safe (by which, he knew that he wasn't _actively_ being hunted down by the entire military), that had a goddess-blessed  _shower,_ that food wasn't going to have to be stolen in order to be halfway decent and edible, that when he found that there were strange stains on his clothes from the monsters he had been fighting, he would be able to hand whatever needed cleaning over to be _properly_   _cleaned_... all of the things he had taken for granted the first time he had been a Shinra employee, which he had only just started to re-accustom himself to after settling into life in Edge.

Another was that it probably wouldn't be too difficult to request missions that sent him further afield. He had even seen something on the notices for  _Nibelheim_ , which had set his mind on the track of just what he could accomplish there, of all places. Banora, unfortunately, had not been on the list, and despite his feelings for his and Angeal's hometown being rather...  _complicated_ still, it was where he had found his restoration in his personal past. Its inaccessibility grated on him, especially given how Shinra watched over its employees' movements as closely as they did, and SOLDIER members even more so.

The most irritating, however, had to be that Angeal had been  _right_. On not just one count, but two.

For one thing, by the time he had finished the mission, his shoulder was hurting like  _hell_. The stress and strain he had been putting on the new wound was apparently far more than it should have been put under, and he had been treating it as though it was the old wound of several years, forgetting that it was still  _fresh_. It was likely bleeding into the dressings he'd reapplied that morning, which was even worse, because if it was, then it was likely that it might have bled into his  _clothes_. 

The other thing, which made his mood take an even further downturn on top of the irritation of everything else, was that... whether he liked it or not, he  _would_ eventually, sooner or later, have to talk to Sephiroth again. It was either that, or... the best case scenario was that he would inevitably find himself sent on a mission alongside the man, and thus far, no one other than Angeal had any idea that such an eventuality could possibly go wrong. The worst case scenario was that Sephiroth would decide that there was clearly an irreparable rift between them, and that-

Was unacceptable.

He was still ruminating on precisely why  _that_ might be, wincing every so often at the fiery ache that mako refused, because of his biology, to heal, when he turned a corner and there he was, at the end of the corridor.

Their eyes met, and Genesis forced his gut instinct reaction down and out of the way. This wasn't a fight. It wasn't even a  _confrontation._

Sephiroth met his gaze for just long enough for it to become almost uncomfortable, before glancing away and acknowledging Genesis' presence with a slight incline of his head.

"Genesis."

His name was said in an even yet careful tone, with just enough volume that if one were not a SOLDIER, it could almost be ignored. 

It sent a shiver down his spine. Not because it reminded him of anything that the General had done in the future, no - but to think of  _Cloud?_  The resemblance was almost uncanny, and given how things had developed back then - or whatever he wanted to call the future he had come from - the question of  _who do these mannerisms come from,_ and _were they shared through Hojo's meddling, or are these two simply that similar by a freak point of nature_ was not particularly one that he wanted answers for.

"Angeal," Sephiroth continued, taking slow, measured steps toward him when Genesis had made no sign of saying anything in return, "strongly suggested that I pushed you beyond some limit I was unaware of in our last fight."

Genesis' eyes narrowed in response.

"If you had held back, then _you_ would be dead, and _I_ would be feeling  _insulted._ "

"Don't flatter yourself." Sephiroth's tone was unimpressed, but there were also hints of probing curiosity. "Your injury is still bothering you."

It wasn't, of course, a question. That was the infuriating thing about having had the same damn injury before, and for so long - he'd become used to its presence, not having had to hide it, and its current state in the present didn't leave much room for hiding it at all.

"I'll be fine, although-" he cut himself off. The urge to add _although no thanks to you_ was strong, and he pushed  _that_ down as well. It wouldn't get him anywhere useful, and undignified though it may be, he needed  _useful_ over  _satisfying_ right now. Even if the memory of their first training room spar that had ended in disaster was now fresh in his mind, and he had still been mourning his sword even though it was now returned to him in a younger, less blemished state. "Thank you for the concern," he made himself say instead.

One of Sephiroth's eyebrow's raised slightly, but he -  _thankfully_ \- did not make a point of the acknowledgement.

"Even mako does not heal everything instantaneously. Cure and Restore materia still require the patient to rest afterwards. Just because you are a high-ranking First, does not mean that you are excluded from those rules. I... look forward to sparring with you again, when you have recovered."

Hesitation like that coming from  _Sephiroth_ was the last thing that Genesis had expected coming into this conversation, but by the time he had recovered from his confused state, the only sign of the man was silver hair vanishing into the elevators.

Perhaps he was not the only one to have had Angeal talk to him, he mused as he found his way to his old office, sitting down to scrawl out a halfhearted mission report, then scrolling through his PHS' emails to refresh him on the goings-on before heading to his rooms for that much-needed shower.

It was the only reason any of that could possibly make any sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Genesis. What's important to remember about our dear protagonist here, is that he's what I like to call an 'unreliable narrator'. 
> 
> Sephiroth back then (now?) really isn't that cold and uncaring toward his friends. In canon, he was rather upset and confused to be told that he couldn't donate blood for the transfusion they said Genesis needed, and that sense of empathy - although with no real people skills to back it up - is there right up until *Nibelheim*. Before the library at least, that is.


	4. Chapter 4

It took several days before he was able to exert himself further than ensuring that Zack did not slack off or get too distracted from his materia training, and re-familiarising himself with his own arsenal, and he couldn't even put the blame down purely on Angeal and Sephiroth watching him like - odd though it was to bring to mind, given his experiences with  _both_ of them - mother hen chocobos. After a significant period of time - more, if one counted the years he had sealed himself away for in the lake - he had become accustomed to his body being restored to its former strength and capabilities.

He had forgotten about the times when he had woken up exhausted and in pain, each one of the supposedly minor injuries he had accumulated crying out to be noticed, each one throbbing and setting his body on fire.

This wasn't nearly as bad as the worst ones, from later on. He only had the one wound, and his degradation hadn't been able to reach too far yet. He hadn't even made any copies, which had originally sped up the process. But he  _had_ misjudged what he was capable of so soon afterwards landing in the past and becoming injured, and the wound, while still superficial compared to how it had become in his older body, still sent sharp needles of pain through his chest and arm.

The first morning after he had made amends of sorts with the Sephiroth-of-the-past, he had woken up in a sweat, for a moment certain that some monster had attacked him in his sleep, a spike of worry surging through him for Cloud, Tifa, the  _children_ \- people who had grown to see him as  _one of them_ despite the fact that they had no reason to love him, who would have been in danger if something had somehow managed to get past Genesis' own defences - before he remembered where he was, when he was, and that what had caused his injury had been no mere mindless monster.

That  _Sephiroth himself_  had not yet earned the title of 'monster' - and nor, in anyone's eyes other than the inhabitants of Wutai perhaps, had he.

He had waved off concerns of his lateness by saying that what he had been doing for over half the morning had been due to 'personal business', which it had been. He'd done his best to carry on as normal around the vestiges of pain, and yet he had also worried that to someone such as Angeal, who had known him since they were children, the way he had still felt the sweat forming on his forehead and palms, the way his hands had been unable to stop shaking at times, would be all too obvious tell-tale signs that he wasn't telling the truth about his health.

The day after that was somewhat better, but he still hadn't trusted himself to be able to commit to the same level of activities that he remembered doing before his degradation had started.

The next day, he went on a low-level mission in Midgar - more an excuse to get out of the Shinra building and away from the other SOLDIERs as well as Hollander and Lazard, and to be able to walk the streets freely, rather than for any other reason.

On the fourth day of his period of forced 'rest', he found himself reading through the missions list on the bulletin board when Angeal and Sephiroth weren't around, his eyes catching on the one that said  _Nibelheim,_ and  _Monster Extermination_ every so often.

 _Not yet_ , he told himself. Although that was just as much due to his need to test his own abilities being exercised by the most fun he'd had in a long time, when he'd told Angeal that the best way that his student could possibly learn how to tell what an enemy was firing at him would be if he learned... in practice, so to speak.

Zack had spent the entire time without any materia other than a single Barrier, while Genesis had enjoyed casting spell after spell at him to force the boy to learn how to  _dodge_ as well as tell the watching Firsts what he'd just barely missed being hit by, and how much strength had been put into it.

Unlike their first training session, this one had a surprising bonus in that Zack seemed to be enjoying it - quite possibly because it meant that he was  _required_ to be constantly moving, puppy that he was.

He hadn't realised that he had been  _staring_ \- again, at that - in an odd enough way that it had Angeal asking if he was all right, that he realised that he had ended up becoming  _sentimental_. About  _Zack Fair._

"Remembering when we were his age," he'd said instead, coving up the blatant lie with a hopefully disarming smile. "There is no hate, only joy, for you are beloved by the goddess - Hero of the dawn, Healer of worlds..."

He shook his head. Let Angeal think of it as nothing more than Genesis carrying on his dream of being the hero of LOVELESS; he would not be  _wrong_ , as he had never let go of it. 

But when Genesis walked away from their training session, the smiles faded as he remembered facing that same SOLDIER in the depths of the Banora underground, watched over by the statue of the Goddess herself.

_"Why is everyone... always pushing things on me?"_

The sensation of a Banora White apple being placed into his lap while he was still too exhausted to even move, and the sound of one being bitten into.

_"Okay, let's eat. Sorry I'm not the real thing, but..."_

Several Thirds and a handful of Seconds scattered to make way for him as he stalked through the halls, pain momentarily not so strong, not so important, his expression probably seeming to be quite threatening.

His thoughts, however, were only fixed on how he owed the person who had helped him so much, at the very least, to not need to use the skills he was being taught against his mentors this time -  _either_ of them.

...

Genesis was gone the next morning, the Nibelheim mission marked as 'taken' and 'in progress', and driving a nondescript Shinra van at speed - a veritable  _luxury_ compared to the constant walking and flying and having to ensure that the unenhanced and generally weaker Hollander was able to keep up with him.

The van was left - not abandoned, since he would, as long as nothing went wrong, be returning for it once he was done - in an out of the way spot.

The moment he had assured himself that it was safe, he closed his eyes, and held out his left arm.

" _Even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return,"_ he recited into the wind that stole the words.

Either Act Three, or his own Act Five.

He found that fitting, the way that events circled around, and found themselves repeating yet creating new content. Just as he had seen in LOVELESS, so too was his own life, it seemed.

Black feathers sprung readily to his call, the sensation of the wind between them something that he had sorely  _missed_. He shook it out even though nothing about  _this_ felt any different from the last time he had felt it in Edge, readied himself, and took to the sky.

...

_"Remind me," he heard Cloud shout stiffly over the wind, "never to agree to this ever again."_

_Genesis remembered having laughed. The man he was carrying, oversized sword - swords, that was important, never underestimate the fact that it was not just one huge sword like Angeal's (no, and not even Zack's anymore)... like the Buster Sword was - and all, had not been fazed one bit by all of the magic and sword work that Genesis had thrown at him._

_Flying, though?_

_"What, afraid of heights?" he'd asked, delighted at the idea._

_"No," Cloud had bitten back, clearly holding his temper in, "I get motion sick."_

_Genesis hadn't been able to not laugh._

_"You would have made a terrible SOLDIER, Cloud Strife."_

_Cloud had looked away, let out a huff that went unheard and would have been unnoticed if Genesis hadn't been carrying him, and swallowed. Once he knew what to look for, the unusual pallor of Cloud's face was rather obvious. He simply hadn't expected it._

_"Yeah, good thing I never got in, huh."_

_Genesis had had to bank sharply to avoid a flock of migratory birds, and hadn't missed the unfortunate widening of Cloud's eyes._

_"If you throw up on me, I'm either going to drop you, Planet be damned, or make you personally clean my coat back to perfect condition as soon as we've landed. And anything else that may have been stained."_

_Cloud had remained silent as they soared over the plains, and eventually the Shera began to come into their line of vision - first as a small dot on the horizon,_ _then steadily growing in size until they could almost hear the airship's engines._

_"Just in case she ever asks," Genesis had heard Cloud say in a diminished sort of tone that suggested nausea and weakness, "don't... just, don't take Yuffie flying. She throws up quicker than I do."_

_As amusing as it had been to see the Planet's saviour brought low by something that he had taken for granted for so long, Genesis had been only all too grateful to feel the solid surface of the Shera beneath his feet at long last, so that if nothing else Cloud could be someone else's problem for the rest of their journey._

_..._

Time, Genesis had been gradually becoming aware of during the past week, was something that he both had in spades and was simultaneously slipping through his fingers like the sand in an hourglass.

If he did not make any Copies, then his degradation would take longer to reach full effect than it had the first time, and there were plenty of events that he could intuit were not due to take place for many months yet, if not  _years._ Jenova would not be able to affect anyone unless they were weak enough to be susceptible, and if Hojo were unaware that anyone happened to be working against him, then he would not think to act against them first.

That had always been one thing the scientist had in common with Sephiroth, that arrogance and overconfidence. That belief that nothing and no one could possibly stand against him. 

At one point, that had frustrated Genesis to no end, his only goal in life becoming, for a time, to bring Sephiroth down and teach him that he was not the perfect hero that Shinra had built him up as. It had shot past and overtaken his  _dream_. Now, though... Genesis had grown to be thirty-one years old before he had been sent back to the past, into his younger self's body. Sephiroth had died at the age of twenty-two. Perhaps nine years were not that much in the long run, and the Goddess herself knew that they had been trained into soldiers befitting the SOLDIER name as children, so that their childhoods had all been spent learning how to fight rather than play - Sephiroth especially. 

Twenty-two, however, let alone  _twenty_ , now seemed fantastically  _young_ , from his viewpoint as someone who had lived that many more years, and seen them all defeated one way or another.

Two years until Sephiroth had died in Genesis' original timeline. Far less, then, before things had begun to fall into place in order for everything and everyone at Nibelheim to have become a perfect disaster, for a perfect monster.

Under two months, he had been been realising back in Midgar, until he would be deployed to Wutai with a large detachment of Seconds and Thirds, and expected to end the war in Shinra's favour. 

It was enough time to accomplish a great many things, if he knew exactly what needed to be done, and how to go about doing them, and yet barely any time at all. He had already lost a week due to his degradation and not wanting to draw any more attention to it than necessary.

More time, however, was something he could get away with taking on this particular mission, given how  _most_ going cross-continent would require several modes of transport, if they weren't taking a helicopter. Genesis had only needed his wing to fly, and so he would not be expected to have completed the mission and be on his way back for a while yet.

Which was good, he told himself, because it gave him time to piece together some sort of plan of action.

Hollander was no longer in charge of his actions, with Genesis trailing along behind the scientist in search of hints about some sort of cure like a dog begging for scraps and attacking on order. Deepground no longer holding him captive. Cloud and his group were back in the far future, a timeline ten years gone, and any sense of confidence in his place in the world gone with them. Shinra was all that was left, and he had no love for them, no matter that they gave him the sense of stability and place to work from that he needed.

It was a freeing sensation, being left to his own devices so absolutely, but also one that left him pacing the unrelenting cliffs of the mountain range that surrounded the Nibelheim locale, single wing flared out behind him for balance, ready to steady him and fly for safety at a moment's notice. Even in Wutai, he'd had a  _direction_. Now...

 _"Infinite in mystery is the gift of the Goddess - we seek it thus, and take to the sky. Ripples form on the water's surface,"_ he recited in a clear voice as he watched the same phenomenon occur not even too far away.  _"The wandering soul knows no rest."_

No. There  _was_ a direction that he had been given - the Goddess was a being of the Lifestream. And while he could do nothing to halt mako production even as a SOLDIER First Class - memories of having been hunted himself, and the cliff where he had been told Zack had faced his last stand flashed through his mind all too clearly - there was  _one_ thing he could do - the one thing he had come another several days away from Midgar to do in the first place.

If nothing had changed too drastically from the original timeline already, Jenova should still be in the Mt. Nibel Reactor.

And if he was able to destroy the virus Sephiroth still laboured under the belief was his  _mother_ , then he could address any problems that arose in the future as he came to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, a chapter full of me being self-conscious of my writing, and a lot of it happening late at night, too. As well as a lot of times when I went "I could put in a flashback/other thing here- ah, no, that would work better in the next chapter."
> 
> If this were one of my other fics, I think the next section would have been added on as extra scenes on the end, but... I think the shorter format is helping this fic keep moving at a faster pace, so. Next time it is!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nibelheim is full of ghosts and monsters. Some of them haven’t been made yet, and some of them are still sleeping. Genesis chooses to do his homework first.

In theory, it was perfectly safe to enter the town. Genesis could even choose to rest at the inn, if he chose. It was not, as it had been the last he'd heard, being run as a mockery of its former self - which had been bad enough to have known of, and worse still to understand things far more from the perspective of the last surviving Nibelheimers than he'd ever wished, when he realised that if he did choose to return to Banora, either to visit the caves underneath the town or for some other reason, that the town would be there again. As if it had never been destroyed, leaving only the orchards.

It was too bad that gaining attention was the last thing he desired at this point in time. Shinra would learn what had happened eventually, sooner or later, but suspension of disbelief was something that could occasionally be useful.

Besides. There were specifically two people that he did not want to approach just yet. Who were... far too intelligent and curious for their own good, which had served him well enough in the past, but that was not  _now_. Now however, they would be practically children, only able to get underfoot and add complications with otherwise useful traits.

So he did what he had done while a fugitive, and waited for the quietest time to pass through the outskirts of the town. Which worked perfectly well for the  _other_ part of his plan, which was - if his memory served him correctly regarding what he had been told of the matter - not going to be nearly so simple as the other.

The amazing thing about being capable of flight, was that it didn't tend to matter how high the fences or walls people put up were, and in a town where monsters were more common, the most that would happen at the sight of a wing as large as his in the dark of night, was the assumption, one which he would have said was not entirely incorrect at one point, that there was merely a new kind of monster.

He made his way into the Shinra Mansion with the stride of one who knew their purpose, despite the fact that he had never actually been properly inside the place before, and most of what he had to go by were other peoples' stories that they sometimes hadn't even wanted to tell him.

His shoulder aching and itching was what told him that important or not, his plans could still wait for another day, and when he took off his coat and rested his sword against the wall by the window, he closed his eyes against the question of whether this was the same room where Zack had once recuperated with a catatonic Cloud. 

Thinking of Zack and Cloud having been in the basement of the place reminded him of the labs, and the labs reminded him of the other important thing about the town, and the mansion itself - that this was where Sephiroth had been born.

 _"Poor little Sephiroth,"_ he remembered having said once, several years in the future.  _"You've never actually met your mother. You've only been told her name, no? I don't know what images you've conjured up in your head, but..."_

Mind drifting back to the the present, he sighed, dropping a hand over his eyes.

 _At least_ , he thought to himself,  _Angeal and I had Banora, Shinra-infested rathole that it was. We had an the illusion of parents who cared for us. Sephiroth... what a mess he must have been._

That he was once more, he realised, the enormity of what lay ahead hitting him, making his head hurt, his shoulder throb, and the itch almost unbearable.

...

_He remembered the first time he had attended the aftermath of a battle between monsters and heroes on the outskirts of Edge with him on the side of the heroes, and the change of perspective was - enlightening._

_Genesis had always thought of himself as the one that they would one day tell stories of, just as much a legend as the great general Sephiroth, respected and admired, he would be the saviour of the world, beloved of the goddess._

_He had used his wing in battle on reflex, lifting him out of harm's way and using the powerful muscles to add to his attacks and for use as the extra limb that it was. It had aided him in being able to reach monsters in places that the others, ground bound that they were, had been unable to. Lives had been saved, all thanks to him._

_Respect and admiration, however, were far from what had been on the general populace's faces ever since they had seen him fight._

_No, that wasn't right - the first few he had approached had treated him with the respect he had deserved. It was only once he had begun to let loose, forgetting everything that his new allies had told him or casting it aside as not important, that they had begun to look at him in... fear._

_The same sort of fear that he remembered from when he had been_ _attacking civilians, not saving them._

_It had stung. Hurt his pride. Confused him, made him round on Cloud the minute things were quiet enough, and ask why - why?!_

_"Sephiroth's got a wing just like that one," Cloud had said, mako eyes hard, as though accusing him of something he hadn't understood how to quantify. And if Cloud hadn't known what it was, then what chance had Genesis had? "People see that, they think of him. Even if it is on the wrong side." Cloud had shaken his head. "You're going to have to work a lot harder than that to make people like you again, you know."_

_Genesis had simply stared at Cloud as the younger man, an ex-trooper, not even an ex-SOLDIER, had just walked away from him, taking a Restore materia from Tifa and moving on, as if Genesis and the fact that no one had even noticed him, only an echo of Sephiroth, hadn't been important enough to stick around for._

_Which had been somewhat unfair. There had been people injured. People who Genesis, with his ability with materia, could have been seeing to as well._

_But instead he stalked off through the town,_ _his feet taking him far enough away that his wing, and all of its ties to the Jenova Project, things that he had thought he could have taken for himself and used for his own means, not just those that Hollander and Hojo had intended, would not strike the fear of Sephiroth any further into the hearts of those he had, for once, been trying to help._

_"Running away... are you?"_

_He hadn't noticed the man up until he'd spoken, which should have been a feat - had it not been for the fact that he had identified the man in red and black as Vincent Valentine, ex-Turk, from the moment he'd seen him._

_In theory, he shouldn't have been able to. They'd never met, not even once. And yet, from the confusion of fleeting impressions and images that he had experienced due to his connection to Tsviets that had been his brothers and sisters, however unwillingly he had gone along with the process, the man had been... familiar._

_It was enough to make Genesis stop in his tracks and pay Vincent his full attention._

_"I would hardly call this me 'running away," he had said, his voice full of bitter resentment. "I may have chosen to leave, but they wished me gone first."_

_There had been a minute or so of silence. In the distance, someone had screamed, but it_ _hadn't been the sound of one in terror of a fresh attack. Whatever it was, he would not be much help._

_"Can you blame them?" Vincent's voice was quiet, but not as harsh as Genesis had heard it at times. "They know Cloud and the others. You walk in, and they just see-"_

_"Him," Genesis had spat out. Sephiroth. Always Sephiroth, and he was sick and tired of it. And unlike before, his feelings were nowhere near as clean-cut as simple frustration at being unable to be the man's equal - there was an almost indescribable sense of revulsion now, too._

_Vincent just nodded._

_Genesis sighed, and began to pace. It felt... familiar, walking among the ruins with his wing out and basking in the sunlight, even though the fact that if he looked hard enough or far enough, he could see the vestiges of his old life looking back, mocking him for mistakes and inaction._

_"No, they don't just see him. They see a monster. No matter what I do, that's a truth that I won't be able to escape." He'd stopped, a bitter smile on his face to match bitter words as he brushed the hair from out of his eyes. "It was the fate of us all, in the end. Me, Angeal... and Sephiroth, the last to find out."_

_For a moment he stood like that, facing the wind, wondering if he should take wing, but knowing that if he did so, he would be shot down, with no-one, friend or foe, able to tell him from their enemy._

_Perhaps the role of 'prisoner' was not so easy to defy as a mere change of heart and goal._

_"I... used to think a lot like that," Vincent said, voice unexpectedly breaking the silence. "I remember looking at them, seeing them watch me, and wondering when they'd realise I was more a hazard than anything else. They never did. They let me go when it was all over, but they never said I was endangering them just because I wasn't human anymore."_

_Genesis' eyes had narrowed at the attempt at unwanted sympathy, but then... the man had been referring to Chaos. And there was something else in there, too - ._

_"Did they set you up to this?"_

_He'd looked back in time to see Vincent shaking his head, a small, slight smile just barely visible under that ridiculous collar of his._

_"I'm no good at fixing things. I just know that walking away has never helped. It's just putting the problem off for later."_

_"The wandering soul knows no rest, is it?" The bitterness that had been in his voice before had died down, leaving only the embers of its fire remaining. At that point, he had just been... tired. He hadn't wanted to deal with this. He hadn't known when he would, though, which had also meant that he would have to sooner or later._

_Well, he remembered asking himself, are you a SOLDIER First Class or not?_

_Where is your pride, your honour? - he could have sworn he had heard someone say, heard Angeal say, but Angeal was long dead and gone to the lifestream, and so was Zack, and Sephiroth-_

_The fates were cruel._

_He'd shook out the feathers of his wing, a few falling loose like soft black leaves, and begun the walk back, Vincent never too far away. And although he'd wondered several times whether that was for his protection, for the sake of the civilians, or to ensure that he truly wasn't a danger to anyone, Genesis tried not to care._

_..._

It took some experimentation in the form of trial and error to find the way into the basement he'd heard so much about, but never been to until now.

That the place was overrun with monsters was nothing other than a small hindrance and at least made for a means with which he could vent some of the stress that came with being there at all, even if the events that had shaped it had not all happened yet. Enough  _had_ that simply walking through rooms of the mansion itself sent chills down his spine, sword ready.

A fleeting thought had him wonder if that chill was not  _all_ the fault of the ghosts that came with the building, making his breath hitch in a moment of panic - Jenova was right there, she was within  _walking distance_ , if his current state made _him_  vulnerable to her influence-

He would just have to hope that if the goddess had sent him, she'd had reason to believe that this would  _work_. 

Besides. He - and Cloud - had  _felt_ Sephiroth's presence before, even when it had been muted or dispersed, and despite concerns neither of them had come out of the encounters with less control of themselves than some had suggested was possible, had been described as  _cause for concern._ If he had been able to handle himself then, he would be able to now.

The irony was not lost on Genesis when he discovered that the hidden door to the basement had been hidden in the very room he'd slept in, but it made little difference aside from the  _time_ lost. Still, he had time to spare as long as this  _worked_ , and he - let alone the Planet - couldn't afford for it  _not_ to work. 

Thankfully, he was used to odds as bad as those. In a sense, he'd worked with worse, at one point - at least he had a higher chance with this than he'd had relying on  _Hollander_ for a cure.

Walking into a room filled with coffins, his enhanced senses giving a suggestion, and short snapshots of memory of people he'd known talking about things he hadn't been around for filling in the rest of the details.

This would be where he would find Vincent, then. And although he was not looking forward to the conversation they were inevitably going to have in order to get the man to stay awake, at least he knew where he could be found.

Morbid curiosity made him keep walking all the way past the lab, which he ignored - for now, the urge to take to it with destructive force the same as he wished to destroy all of Hojo's  _other_ labs could only  _allow_ 'for now' - and on to the library, eyes skimming over the countless journals and books full of scientific notations on the very nature of Jenova, of Sephiroth's origin...

But while he wasn't exactly going to pass up an opportunity to gain that all-important context, it wasn't what he had been drawn here for.

Hojo had taken Genesis' own cells and used them to be the very fuel of the Deepground project, and the memories of waking up underground somewhere that had clearly not been Banora, SOLDIERs without the SOLDIER emblem on their uniforms, and sealing himself away in order to deny them his cooperation as that had been all he had been  _able_ to do, both to save and to damn them all-

The least he deserved was to see the origin of  _that_ , as well, since he had been so  _personally involved._

Seeing the name  _Dr. L. Crescent_ on one of the notebooks, and if the style of some of the letters was familiar in form to the handwriting he'd seen in Sephiroth's office... _well_.

Perhaps there'd always been more of Dr. Crescent in little Sephiroth than anyone had so far suspected - something Genesis highly doubted that Hojo would have bothered to notice at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A certain thing was, again, pushed back until the next chapter - as I told my friends after I'd written most of it and only the editing remained, "Genesis is a little shit and *got distracted*."


	6. Chapter 6

A loud thud rang out the tunnels and corridors of the Shinra Mansion's basement. After the reverberations had died down, there was another one, this time with the additional sounds of cracking - and then something heavy flying for a short distance before being stopped, and falling onto the floor with another ringing  _thud._

Kicking the lid of a coffin off was, in Genesis' opinion, far easier than looking for the key that had to be around here somewhere, and also didn't require him to push, since his shoulder was currently giving him grief again.

A pair of glowing red eyes glared up at him, but he was far too satisfied with the fact that there was now no possible way for the ex-Turk to go back sleep on him now, even if he wanted to, to be bothered by it. 

"What do you want with me."

Genesis' smile was probably not the most reassuring thing. But  _reassuring_ wasn't the effect he was aiming for. 

Vincent probably wouldn't have responded positively to it even if it had, which was more important.

"When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end, the goddess descends from the sky. Wings of light and dark spread afar..." he spoke without moving, or letting his eyes off the man who was still only just sitting up. Carefully, presumably because of the fact that Genesis' boot was still on the edge of the coffin. "Are you aware of LOVELESS? We're in the prologue. I'm not letting you sleep in all the way through to the final act."

"...You aren't just here to quote drama at me. Are you?"

Genesis' mouth twitched into a smile.

"If that was all I'd wanted, then I would have gone somewhere with better reading material." Vincent's eyes narrowed, at that. "Or stayed home. But given I came here, when I could have just let history run its course... let us just say that I have a dislike for those who run from their fates so easily. People like us don't get an easy way out, Vincent Valentine."

Vincent looked over the room, seeming to just now fully take in the shattered state of the coffin he'd been resting in, and sighed - barely perceptible, but something that Genesis took smugly to mean that the man had by now realised that he wasn't going to be able to just drag the lid back over, with it in at least two pieces. 

Satisfied that he was now being taken seriously, Genesis took his boot off, and a step back.

"Who... even  _are_ you. You said 'people like us'... and you seem to know who I am, at least."

"SOLDIER First Class, Genesis Rhapsodos. Don't bother trying to place the name. Unless you paid attention to Project G as well as you did Project  _S._ You could say that I was the...  _prototype._ " His shoulder  _itched._ He attempted to ignore the discomfort, and tried not to wince when the ache stabbed further into him, even when a quick glance confirmed that it hadn't started to bleed through the last bandages he'd applied. At least, not enough to stain his coat if it _had_. "And as for you, I did some light reading before heading over. It was most - informative."

By the time he looked back up, Vincent was stood, leaning against the underground room's wall with his hand by Cerberus' holster, staring at him.

"You're - the first result of the Jenova Project." Already on edge from the mix of the familiarity of someone he knew, attempting to keep control of the situation and steer it in the right direction, and this  _place_ , Genesis tensed, and he closed his eyes for a breath at that _name_  before opening them again. Forcing himself to remain calm and not lash out like the white noise of his anger was saying sounded like  _such a good idea right now._ "But that doesn't you make like me. That was done to you, and I-"

"Missed twenty years because you were in a place where you couldn't do anything? Because you were made into a monster? Perhaps you should join the club, because compared to what some of the  _other_ members of its small mailing list have done, that's  _hardly worth a mention."_

For a moment it looked as though that had made Vincent angry, which could have been a problem even it was true - but then the man just closed his eyes, looking infuriatingly as though he were about to go back to sleep standing up against the other wall.

"If that's true, then why wake me up? I have enough to atone for. The world doesn't need me adding to its problems any more than I already have."

Genesis rolled his eyes. This would be amusing if it were happening to anyone else. Perhaps if it were Angeal, he would know how to deal with the man in front of him better, and if it were Sephiroth himself... well, that would have taken care of that easily enough, given what little he knew -  about how Vincent felt about Sephiroth's  _actual_ mother.

"Someone once told me," he said tersely, "that walking away from our problems has never helped anyone. That it simply puts the problem off for later. I'd imagine the same goes for  _sleeping_ on them," he added blithely, glancing at the coffin he'd kicked open.  _Or sealing yourself away from them,_ he thought of adding, but that  _had_ been the only thing he could have done at the time.

He had to tell himself that. Just  _remembering_ the spell finally taking full hold and realising the reality of how this was one that he would not be able to control once it had been finalised, that _had_ trapped him away, made him shudder, feel the closeness of the walls, the fact that he was  _underground, again_...

Underground had used to mean  _hidden from the adults who'd wanted him to do boring things_ , and then it had meant  _goddess,_ and  _safe_ , and perhaps the caves under Banora would be different, if he went back to them again. 

But ever since Deepground-

Vincent's voice, rusted after disuse as it was, broke the silence that had given him too much space to think in, and startled him into breathing.

"I could ask," the man was saying, "what the hell  _you've_ gone through, kid."

Frayed nerves and low walls tested his already short patience.

"I  _started a war_ and inadvertently nearly caused the  _world to end_ by the time I reached the age you were in the notes I read," he snarled out, gripping Rapier's hilt at his side and eyes flashing. "I didn't go through all of  _that_ to get called 'kid' by someone who looks younger than me!"

Vincent's eyebrows rose, expression clearly incredulous even with most of his face hidden by his hair or the collar of his cape.

Genesis froze, his words playing back to him in his mind, and swore, softly, under his breath.

"Your accounts aren't adding up," Vincent said, stating the obvious.

...

_The fight had been, Genesis would always remember, one of the most brutal that he had ever been in where he was absolutely certain that he had never fought this person before in his life, and that if he had, then they hadn't - couldn't have had - this level of raw strength and skill._

_Truth to tell, he'd freely admit that he'd barely recognised Cloud Strife at first. If at all. The last times they'd met, the man he'd been trading blows with had been a trooper, not worth the attention of a SOLDIER First Class. Either that, or how later on, Cloud had been merely a means to an end, the trooper that had been experimented on by Hojo, who had the S-cells within him that Hollander had suggested would work to cure him of his degradation - them, it had been by that point._

_Perhaps if he had remembered, made the connection sooner rather than later, things might have gone easier, smoother. But then, with only the barest of details of anything that had happened in the past four years - nearly five - he'd had no way of knowing then that when Cloud had looked at him, he had seen the wing and his power and his attitude, and assumed the worst._

_Genesis had hardly been at his best for a confrontation of that sort, either - despite recognising his opponent halfway through the fight because of the familiar shape that the man's sword had become when combined into one blade, the familiar hair that he'd recognised from a trooper dressed up above his rank - he had started off gravely off balance due to still still processing the Midgar that he had emerged into, as well as not accepting that even as weak as he had been after that long sealed off from the world in a tiny sphere of power, anyone other than Zack Fair could possibly hope to defeat him, with Sephiroth dead, and SOLDIER gone._

_He had also had Weiss to protect, who had been a dead weight, who he had been forced to put down and hide the moment he had realised that perhaps, he had needed to face this person who had thrown a sword at them which had whistled by a little too close for comfort. Which had been a blessing of the goddess in disguise, given how otherwise he would have been forced to rely only on the materia that he had been able to keep on his person despite Deepground's numerous yet evidently futile attempts to relieve him of them._

_He could still remember Cloud stalking toward him, fury in his eyes as well as a growing sense of confusion, as he'd been asked what he wanted, why he was even here again, couldn't he just go away-_

_The shock on Cloud's face when, after laughing and brushing the now long hair out of his face, Genesis had looked up, and asked what Cloud thought it was that he'd been trying to do._

_"As interesting and enjoyable the thrill of a good fight with someone on my level always is, you're doing nothing other than wasting my time."_

_Which had, of course, been the wrong thing to say._

_In time, he would learn that he would end up with a habit of that, whenever he was around Cloud or one of his friends for too long, and sometimes 'too long' was not very long at all. In time and with shared experiences, they would learn to get accustomed to him, and he would remember what it was to have to take someone else's feelings into consideration when he spoke, sometimes at least._

_But at the beginning of it all, not even his mako-enhanced body that by the will of the goddess wasn't degrading had been able to withstand the amount of pressure he himself had put it under, and first one step had faltered, then a spell had flown off course._

_The final indignity had been finding himself on his back, wing aching from the shoulder where he had landed on it awkwardly, the blond with the strength of a SOLDIER holding his blade - not a Buster Sword, despite the shape, close, but not the same - inches from having been a killing blow._

_Genesis could still remember his own confusion at the fact that some no-name trooper had just done this, and hatred - at how easily he had been brought low, when he had only just become free. Before he had managed to do anything, anything at all._

_One last spell had died before he had managed to so much as materialise a single spark, the hazy feeling coming to him that was the result of having used materia too much. Something that he hadn't felt in - a long, long time._

_Then again, he had only just emerged from a years-long stasis spell that he had been casting on his own power, supported by the sheer amount of mako and lifestream in his surroundings._

_And then._

_"I just... don't get you. I don't get you at all - nothing about you makes any_ _sense. I thought I had you figured. But... who even... are you?"_

_"SOLDIER First Class, Genesis Rhapsodos. And I am far more interested in how a comatose trooper managed to somehow gain strength on the level of Sephiroth."_

_Eventually, hindsight would cause him to wince slightly at the memory, thanks to the thankfully non-fatal blow that had come to him because of it. Unfortunately, such foreknowledge was something else that he hadn't had access to at the time._

_He had awoken to a pounding headache stronger than the one he'd had before, a_ _woozy feeling that had reminded him far too much of one too many mornings as first a cadet spending more than the reasonable amount of time drinking into the night on LOVELESS avenue, and then a Third and after that Second Class who hadn't had any idea what materia exhaustion meant, and would have worn himself out to the last - had, whenever Angeal wasn't there._

_There'd been no Angeal to get him out of this mess he'd made for himself, and he'd drawn in on himself slightly when the memories of the young SOLDIER he'd grown up with and those of his equal, two white wings behind him and looking as exasperated with Genesis as he always had when his friend had done something incredibly stupid, faded away on the wind without even a single white feather remaining._

_Only a pair of mako-bright blue eyes, completely unwelcoming, that promised to be as stubborn as any of them had ever been, so long as he had answers by the end of it._

_..._

In the present, it was a pair of mako-bright red eyes that inspected him now; if Genesis hadn't become as acclimatised to dealing with the man in the future he'd known, he might have thought he was being regarded with indifference. Experience told him that it was something more along the lines of bewildered disbelief.

"Time travel," Vincent eventually said.

Despite having heard far more than Genesis had so far been comfortable even  _thinking_ around anyone back in Midgar, there was an unspoken  _you really expect me to believe that?_ in the way those two words had been said, and the worst thing was that if he hadn't been personally involved, Genesis knew that  _he_ might not have believed himself, either.

"You're one to talk," he said, as if he'd admit any of that. "You, who holds Chaos within you - a WEAPON to the Planet, squire to Omega - and you think  _time travel_ is the improbable thing?" He noticed the look Vincent was sending him, and his mouth twitched in a humourless smile. "I wasn't lying when I said that I'd done a little reading first, although it  _did_ help that I had a little first-hand experience, and more than a few reliable second-hand accounts."

Vincent sighed, and looked away. In the direction of the labs, Genesis noted. 

"Say I believe you," came the words he'd been waiting to hear. "What do you even need me for?"

"Several things," Genesis said dryly. "You see, you're an important person. The Planet cares so little of things such as  _perceived sins_. It cares about threats... and protecting itself." Vincent looked as though he was about to dig his heels in again, and once more Genesis had to wonder just how Cloud and his friends had managed to do this the  _first_ time. "In regards to more  _pressing_ matters... how much do you want to inconvenience and infuriate Professors Hojo and Hollander?"

 _Aha,_ came the realisation when the downright vicious smile on his own face was mirrored by what little of Vincent's face he could actually see. It was just a shame that they were currently limited to being a thorn in the science department's side rather than something more permanent and...  _lethal_.

"Where do we start?"

Then again, with what he had planned - this was just as good. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re: the flashback - Cloud's perspective was probably much more like, "there is a man in a long coat with one wing coming at me from above, against the sun. Oh, for fuck's sake I thought I'd done with this- wait, this isn't Sephiroth. Okay, so who IS it?"
> 
> Also, Genesis isn't actually that badly matched against Cloud, just to clarify in case it wasn't clear - he's just being an idiot, because you don't get up from being sealed away for several years without resting first. And what does he do in the *canon secret ending*? Exactly that.
> 
> As for how much Vincent knows about Genesis - I'd say that since Vincent was a Turk supervising Project S, he was probably at least somewhat aware of the Project G children, at least knowing that they existed, since according to the timeline I'm using, he only gets shot when Genesis and the others would be around four years old. Genesis on the other hand mainly knows about Vincent what Vincent himself had talked about in his past, or the others, or what he's seen in his own research regarding Deepground.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's the truth - when you ask a SOLDIER how they are and they say they're 'fine', whatever you do, don't believe them. They're lying. They'll never tell you honestly until they've already burnt themself out.
> 
> Chapter warnings for some dark thoughts and mental places, as well as violence and character death in the flashback. 
> 
> A flashback which makes me think I'll be changing the rating of the story. Whoops.

Plans were suggested, drafted, argued over, and then eventually finalised, with both of them ensuring that the details were repeated enough times that they would be remembered even if neither of them had the memory retention of a Turk or one of the best strategic minds of Shinra's army.

Remembering alone was all they had, given how it was unwise to have anything that could be hacked, read, or otherwise traced back to either of them. Genesis was fairly sure that by the time they were done, he'd worn the carpet down in both the library and several rooms of the upper part of the mansion itself. Several times, his fingers had twitched with the desire to either destroy the labs  _now_ and have done with it, burning the place to the ground, but their plans said to  _wait._

Two more days had gone by, and yet at the same time it felt as though they had slipped through his fingers like the sand in an hourglass.

They took the path up the mountain, setting off in the hazy light of dawn while no one was out yet to see them pass by in the distance, hardly speaking. Then again, they hardly had to - they knew what they were there for, they knew what the plans were. There was nothing else to say, other than when Genesis gave a warning about the bridge, because of how the first time he'd found himself here, he'd seen it broken.

Thankfully, despite its numerous audible complaints, the bridge did not give way. He  _could_ have flown over or caught Vincent in time, but it was preferable to not have to go to such lengths.

Every step he took, drew him further in. Not merely because of the plans that they had made, or the fact that he was pushing himself with a determination built from all of his experiences, and everything that he had done in order to realise that this was not only necessary, but that it  _needed_ to be done, that it was his duty, to fulfil the promise he had made to people who for so long had been dead, and now were not.

It felt as though something was  _pulling_ him. Weakly, only faintly, but there was a disturbing allure about it that he recognised all too well. A  _hunger,_ too, that was hidden underneath everything else, to  _consume_ , above all.

Genesis narrowed his eyes, hand clutching at his shoulder through his coat, and steeled himself.

...

Unlike Cloud, he had never found himself the victim of painful flashbacks. Perhaps he had some regrets, perhaps there were things that he would prefer not to think on, but unless it involved the tight, claustrophobic feeling of being underground and with no way out, having relinquished control of his ability to be free...

Aside from the memory of allowing Sephiroth to see him at his worst and most vulnerable, barely able to stand and fight for more than five minutes, the memory of having gone down so far as to  _ask for help_ , practically begging someone he had no expectations of feeling any desire to have compassion for him - the Reactor itself held nothing. 

Bitterness, yes. Regret, definitely. 

But those were only the memories, and if they were all he had to contend with, perhaps this would only have been uncomfortable, rather than  _unbearable._

He felt as though he were being pulled apart, piece by piece, mind torn between the  _pull_ and the  _revulsion_. What was more, he wasn't sure if the fact that it felt  _different_ somehow was better, or worse. 

Before, Jenova had felt like a background presence, in comparison. The thrum of the engine that drove the motor that was Sephiroth onwards, the underlying themes of the play that only those keen-eyed readers would truly understand were running through the entirety of the text rather than simply those few spots where everything became clear.

Now, she was all that there was, and the only thing he had on his side was the fact that he knew a bare fraction of what to expect - and Vincent's presence behind him, as they had planned,  _in case, just in case._  

Genesis wasn't Sephiroth. There had been a few times - more than a few - when he had been younger, when he had wished that he  _was_. Times later on, when he had wished and desired everything that Sephiroth had, everything that he  _was_ \- if only to become whole again. 

But he  _wasn't_ Sephiroth, and there were few times when he had so keenly been so very  _grateful_ of that fact.

Jenova felt like needles in his mind, like needles in his arms, and like attempting to run when there wasn't enough gravity to hold him down and attached to the Planet.

"...You doing okay?"

Vincent's voice cut through it all, and Genesis set himself, stood straighter, put his hand on Rapier, and nodded once. 

Eyes on the door, still shut tight. One quick blizzard spell evenly distributed and a well-placed strike with his sword, and the thing shattered inward like it was nothing.

 _He_ had never seen the battles that had been waged in this place. But - he could easily imagine it, looking around. It was almost too easy to look up, and imagine that he could see Sephiroth, silver hair gleaming in dim glow of Jenova's tank in the midst of the dim reactor. But no one else was there, and it was all hypothetical, academic.

This time, _he_ would be the hero. He would make it so that none of what had gone before, would ever have to be repeated.

Rapier rose, glinting in the artificial light and the mako glowing all around them, and he struck the angelic facade away, letting it crash down through the reactor unceremoniously. Then, through the haze that he had to fight through, he turned his weapon on the tank itself, a rage coursing through him the like of which he hadn't felt since before - years before - back when he had been degrading and if he were to die uncelebrated, then all of the world would perish with him.

Scenes flashed in the forefront of his mind, feelings and emotions and they only served to fuel the fires of his anger.

Finally, a crack appeared in the reinforced glass. And then it deepened, sending shockwaves through the rest of the tank, spiderwebbing out so that with the next strike there was more of a hole, glass falling on either side.

 _"You,_ " he snarled out, "You think that you can take me, like you tried to take _him_? You think that I would ever let that happen?"

Another strike. More glass shattered.

Jenova's presence pressing on his mind, uncaring of his protestations, certain - so certain - that none of it mattered.

"I am  _SOLDIER First Class Genesis_ _Rhapsodos_ , and all you have ever done is  _destroy_ , and  _take-_ "

Larger pieces fell, but Genesis paid them little mind. The top of the tank began to tilt dangerously.

"My  _health._ My  _friends._ My ability to use  _reason_.  _You took my FUTURE from me, DAMN YOU."_

Rapier bit into flesh, and he wove the spellwork to let fire run down the blade, purifying it once more, and then his free hand was drawing back, firing up another spell.

The buzzing in his mind became insistent, immediate, yet he had let that old fury take a hold of him, and this time it was directed somewhere  _useful._  

Degradation was something that he could accept, to a point, now. His life would end honourably on the battlefield with  _pride_ , with or without it. The feelings of helplessness were diminished if not forgotten, and in their place were the anger, the hatred, and the frustration - but all aimed at one single point in front of him.

The Firaga fired true, with only a short distance to fly. He felt the heat on his face, singing his hair and clothes, but the effect on the parasite was instant.

Blue-violet skin blackened. Singed.  _Burned._

 _"My soul,"_ he said, the words ripping through him with all the dark satisfaction that he had, _"corrupted by vengeance..."_

As it had been. He had been so blind to the need to see the world  _burn_ as payment for what it had done to him.

Another Firaga shot out, and the heat level in the remains of the tank began to rise to the point where the air was creating a heat haze. 

_"Hath endured torment-"_

And how much of that had been his own fault, and how much Shinra's, and how much the influence on his mind telling him even before he had any sort of understanding that this  _was not him_ , that this was natural, was normal, was  _only his right_ - 

Another, and the glass was starting to melt. Smaller fires had already started both around the inside of what remained, and inside the virus' body itself.

Jenova was screaming at him in his mind, the pressure almost  _unbearable_ in its loudness.

_"-to find the end of the journey-"_

He'd thought that he'd found it once before, in Banora. A dumbapple dropped in his hand. The Gift of the Goddess. And again, when for the first time in his  _entire life_ , there had been people to pick up the ragged pieces of what had been left and accept him for who and what he  _was_.

Another. Jenova was beginning to collapse in on herself, crying out not in fear but her own fury, unable to understand why something of  _hers_ was doing such a thing against her, _couldn't it see what it was doing-_

_"-in my own salvation..."_

Memory washed over him, dizzying and clear and terrifying, the sword in the hand that wasn't casting another Firaga twitching toward an opponent who wasn't there.

 _This_ was his salvation. This here. Now. This was his  _chance._

A Planetary cure.

_"-and your... eternal... slumber."_

Fire. There was fire all around him, flickering at the corner of vision as much as in the tank as in the wires and tubes that were  _everywhere._

Jenova was gone. Smouldering ashes the only thing that remained.

Water was good, for purifying. Especially the water that came from the church, the one that had the flowers and the Buster Sword, and that water healed things, made them  _good_ and  _whole_ again.

But fire was the purifier that burned everything away, so that nothing remained after the fire was gone.

Banora had burned, once. He had not done the deed himself, in person, but he might as well have done, as the Turks had razed the village because of  _him_ , for  _his actions_.  

Nibelheim had burned, too. Burned for secrets it hadn't known that it was keeping, innocents and sinners alike caught up in the flames, the only ones not present the ones who had needed to burn the most.

Genesis stared blankly at the destruction he had wrought - he, not anything controlling him, or influencing him, just  _Genesis_ \- and stayed there long enough that the sound of someone's voice calling out his name jolted him, and he almost fell off the pipe that he was having to stand on.

He was just about able to stumble down to safety, at least to something solid and unlikely to cause him to fall to his death if he slipped and couldn't fly quickly enough to stop his fall, before coughing and then tumbling down to the metal floor of the reactor at the top of the stairs, unsure if his vision was going dark because of the low lighting, or because of his impending unconsciousness.

...

 _In the past, he had sometimes wondered what it must be like, for Sephiroth to fight with hair as long as that. Then_ _again, Sephiroth had seemed perfect and unattainable in so many other things, that the ability to fight with hair like that was just one more thing on the list._

_Over a decade on and with hair that now reached his mid-back and did not lie straight the way that Sephiroth's did, Genesis still had trouble understanding._

_It got everywhere. In the way of his strikes, in his eyes... it wasn't worth it, really - not even for the added dramatic flare that it lent to his appearance. Perhaps, he found himself thinking while dancing out of the way of another of Masamune's strikes, he should really cut it back again._

_But then, would that make him look too much more like the man who had caused all of this in the first place? The one who had thought of nothing of himself right up until the very end, and even now, was thinking of his hair over the fact that people had died, that they hadn't needed to, that they were back in Banora-_

_Sephiroth had never been to Banora before, and that was a thought brought about by flight of fancy. This was his first time seeing Genesis' hometown, what little there was of it left. And Angeal's, too. Yet as far as Genesis knew, he had paid the place no heed, simply stalking through until he reached the underground, where Genesis had lain waiting._

_And now-_

_Genesis had gotten better, over the years and the past time he'd spent with Cloud and his friends. He had gone out of his way to test himself against each of them, as long as they rose up to the bait; Cloud was the easiest, although Cloud also seemed to understand the need to be stronger, and sparring without anyone's life on the line... it had been fun._

_But Sephiroth was no longer human, having become an entity born of the Jenova-tainted lifestream and the enhancements that the remaining few SOLDIERs all had in them - a pull that even Genesis was susceptible to._

_Perhaps Cloud could have bested him in a simple fight, but... Genesis was no Cloud, infused with S-cells which were just as much a blessing as they were a curse._

_He was being pushed back._

_It was a good thing, then, that he knew exactly where he was being pushed back to._

_(Come into the parlour, said the spider to the fly - he could remember someone saying that, a long time ago, but he couldn't remember who, other than that it was a woman's voice. Who had been kind and brushed his hair. Short hair._

_But whatever you do, don't throw me to the briar patch, anything but that._

_Not to the woods and the wilds and the deep dark caves where you can get lost, and lost, and never come out.)_

_..._

Sephiroth is talking with Angeal when he feels the strange sensation wash over him - not exactly unpleasant, but incredibly uncomfortable, enough that he tenses and looks around, wondering if someone is watching him. 

But Angeal's young student is hard at work for once, practicing kata and getting frustrated when he cannot seem to remember more than a few steps at a time.

The feeling continues not to abate, and his discomfort builds to the point where Angeal asks if something is the matter.

"I am fine," he says, even though he still feels the need to take Masamune and go out, out of the Shinra building, possibly further than Midgar, although where to he has no idea. 

And then, it's gone.

His breath catches in his lungs as though he is breathing through heavy smoke rather than the air conditioning of the Shinra Building, or even the stench of mako that's ever-present in the rest of Midgar.

Then that dissipates too, and he's left staring into space somewhat. 

"Angeal," he begins, and then stops, feeling uncharacteristically hesitant, uncertain. Angeal's expression bids him continue in some way, however, and he makes an attempt. "Does it seem... quieter, to you?"

Angeal is confused at first. Looks around, listening.

"I don't know, I don't think so..." A pause, and then a serious expression settles there on his friend's face. "Now that you mention it, though..."

If  _Angeal_ thought so, then it could not simply be some hallucination of the senses. Unless someone had cast Confuse on both of them. 

A quick glance confirmed that no one else was in the area who was good enough with materia to have done so.

And Genesis, of course, was off on a mission, either still on his way to or arriving at somewhere called Nibelheim. 

...

_Many people thought of themselves as religious - they would believe in things such as the Planet, or the Lifestream, or a deity, which would most often be found to be a summons, sooner or later._

_Genesis had always believed in the Goddess, and always had ever since he had seen his first lines of LOVELESS written in stone under Banora. His own personal haven. His hideout, his lair, his secret base... and now, this._

_His final stand._

_They'd all thought that it was over, of course. Wasn't that what both of them did best? Let the enemy think that they are safe, and strike when they are unprepared. Unarmed, not even thinking that they need to be._

_And now Cloud was half the Planet away, along with more than half of the others, and any others who were close enough, unable to help._

_Not that he needed help. Help would mean people to tell him to stop, and he had promised, once, that the reason for his new lease on life was so that he could save the world, in their stead - not string it along a little longer, until the next crisis._

_..._

Hojo looked up from his research, a blip on the monitor he'd been keeping in the background alerting him to something strange - a malfunction regarding one of the older reactors. 

It was no matter, then. He could look over the finer details later, after he'd finished with this latest project, and then hand the task over to Tuesti to send a technician out. 

The reactor number flashed up, and he blinked, uncertain of his prior dismissal.

Perhaps it would be more serious than a minor mishap. The possibility was rising that he might have to inspect the site himself, which hardly sat well with him, because it interrupted his work, especially since what he was currently working on was time sensitive, and unless this was merely a false alarm, he would be required to be absent for anywhere up to a  _week._

Regardless. It was hardly as though he had to pack his things and be sent of  _now._  

He would decide whether it was important enough to warrant a visit when the messenger came with the bad news once the report had been finalised.

...

_"How much do you remember of LOVELESS, Sephiroth?"_

_Those familiar green eyes had merely narrowed, and batted his sword away._

_Very well._

_Ice started to form along Masamune, almost reaching the hilt and Sephiroth's hand before it cracked and disappeared, flicked off in a single motion and headed straight back to Genesis._

_"Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul - pride is lost, wings stripped away-"_

_His impromptu recitation is cut off by having to dodge a thrust to his midsection, and he could all too easily see how someone weaker, slower, or less experienced would get skewered._

_Thankfully, he was none of those things._

_Sephiroth frowned - irritated, annoyed - but said nothing._

_"-the end is nigh," he finished._

_They were close._

_Swords caught in a stalemate, he half expected a third, smaller and brittle broadsword, to come between them both, but that was long gone, and nostalgia would get him nowhere. He couldn't simply live in the past and expect to live._

_Angeal was gone._

_Sephiroth's irritated expression intensified, and Genesis found himself flung almost to the other end of the cavern, dust rising up under his feet, thankful he had been able to spread his own wing out at the last second so that he had not ended up prematurely in the Lifestream, but in doing so the strong muscles pulled, and hit against an outcropping of rock, the pain jarring through the bones making the rest of his descent ungainly._

_"My friend, your desire... is the bringer of life, the Gift of the Goddess."_

_It was still here. He could feel its presence._

_Sephiroth floated down in front of him, Masamune angled downward, almost at ease if it weren't for the fact that the sword was aimed straight for him, could slice him apart in a matter of seconds._

_In front of him, and in front of the materia, which seemed dull and lifeless again, yet Genesis knew better. He had wielded its power once, after all._

_"Legend shall speak," he started- and rushed forwards, catching Sephiroth truly off guard, and if it weren't a matter of life and death and blood and bones and his broken wing providing all the remaining impetus to carry them onward, then he would almost laugh._

_Was this what Cloud had seen, if what he had been told was true?_

_Rapier dug into Sephiroth's heart, both of Genesis' hands on the hilt, while the shock was beginning to set in, the realisation, the fact that Masamune was between his own ribs, as he shoved them both against the Goddess Materia._

_"Of sacrifice at world's end."_

_Sephiroth snarled, only just beginning to comprehend what was going on._

_"You have no idea what you're doing. It won't accomplish anything. Any sacrifices you make will all be for nothing."_

_The materia began to glow, and this time he did not pray for power._

_"What are you doing?"_

_Nothing that Sephiroth, his eyes widening in disbelief, could do about. Not now. Not any longer._

_"GENESIS!"_

_He finally laughed. It wasn't as though it would do any more harm._

_"So, you finally deign to remember my name, do you? Too late, Sephiroth. You are nothing but a blight on the land... and believe it or not, I swore that I would protect this Planet. Even... from you."_

_And myself, if it ever became necessary, was the unspoken addition._

_You almost took my mind, he wanted to say, words failing him as he poured all of his strength into ensuring that the materia worked its miracle. I could almost thank you for that. Perhaps for the first time, I know what it must have been like to be one of my own Copies. Without a will, without anything other than someone else attempting to overly themself on top of everything that is me._

_Because now, I truly understand that what we have done, is truly unforgivable._

_Sephiroth's complexion, already pale as death when death had almost become a meaningless joke to him, was now casting a grey pallor. His eyes were growing dim. Muscles, twitching - pain lanced through him, as Masamune jerked._

_When he had suffered from degradation, the Goddess Materia and the lifestream had cured him, made him well. Degradation caused by Jenova and his humanity fighting for dominance like a cancer, yet each cell was infected._

_Sephiroth, as he was now, was no longer human. Genesis wondered if he ever truly had been anything close to human ever since his death, or if this would always have worked._

_Sephiroth, who was mainly comprised of the last remnants of Jenova from the tainted lifestream itself, and mako, and all that was Jenova was being being systematically destroyed or reformed into something more palatable to the Planet, but there was nothing for it to cling to, nothing for it to turn into that was not Jenova and was not Sephiroth, because by now they were merely two sides of the same coin._

_Genesis pulled himself back and away as Rapier began to turn black everywhere that Sephiroth's blood touched it, reminded of the Geostigma that he had been told of, only to remember that he now had a hole in his torso, wing bent, and legs that were unable to support him gave way._

_He fell, facing the Lifestream one empty hand reaching out._

_All that awaits you is a sombre morrow, no matter where the winds may blow, came the words into his head. Perhaps this was how it was always going to be - his fate the tragedy. The unsung hero, lost to death before his time._

_Green filled his vision. Pure, pale, crystal clear green._

_Until his eyes would not stay open._

_Until the world faded to white._

...

Genesis opened his eyes, his body having already told him that he was lying not on the hard surface of the Mt. Nibel Reactor, not on the the cold ground of the Banora Underground, but on a  _bed._

He breathed in, only to cough, and a shaking hand reached to his ribs, only to find no pain. His lungs still burnt, however, why did-

"You didn't warn me you were going to go that far," a familiar voice said, and he turned to find its owner sitting in a chair nearby, hard to miss what with all that red, black, and gold. 

He looked away.

"I'd... forgotten." 

The words came out raspy, and his first thought was to worry if this was what his voice would be now - constantly sounding asthmatic and as though he hadn't used it for nearly thirty years. His ability to read LOVELESS in the way that it had been intended would be  _ruined._

A glass of water came into his field of vision. 

"Drink. I'm fine, but you've got smoke inhalation. That was quite the stunt you pulled. Sure you aren't some stupid reckless kid?"

Genesis rolled his eyes as he tentatively brought the water up to chapped, sore lips. Slowly at first. Then longer sips. He didn't bother to answer.

_Cloud, and everyone else, looking at him as though they wondered whose side he was on at some of the ideas he came up_ _with, Cid saying "What are you, freakin' insane?!" when he suggested arming the WRO with flamethrowers against Jenova-infected monsters._

_Never mind that it had worked._

"Good thing you had that many high-level healing items and materia on you," Vincent was saying now, not looking at him but almost _through_ him, "or you'd probably be dead regardless."

Genesis bit back the desire to say,  _it would hardly be the first time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that you've survived that, go back to the first chapter, and re-read it.
> 
> And if you pay attention to review responses, you'll realise that I did not, in fact, have this planned - it was one of those things where it came to me and the more I thought about every single aspect, it slotted into place like the last piece of a four-dimensional puzzle.
> 
> Oh, and most of my verbal reaction to what I was writing regarding the flashback was "Oh no. Oh god. No. You absolute magnificent *bastard*. Why are you *doing* that."
> 
> On the other hand, the earlier bit with Jenova was planned quite some time ago. I was looking forward to it a LOT.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now featuring early cameos. Genesis can't quite believe what's going on. Admittedly, it's a lot to get used to.

"Are you  _actually a SOLDIER_ , mister?"

Genesis bit back the urge to snap, satisfying himself only with drumming his fingers against his other arm, and raising an eyebrow at the boy, half his height and with messy dark brown hair. A quick look confirmed that he wasn't the only one, either - there were several others following him through the town, some trying to hide and some not bothering.

The accent was familiar, because of course it was. Stronger than he remembered from Cloud and Tifa, but still recognisable as the Nibelheim way of talking.

"SOLDIER First Class," he said dryly, "Genesis." His voice had mostly recovered in the day that he had been forced to recover. He'd slept for some time before waking up with smoke inhalation and memories returned to him in nightmare form, and after that Vincent glaring at him for several hours if he'd so much as tried to head toward a door or window.

They had reached an impasse when they had both remembered that given what had happened in the Reactor, they were running on borrowed time, now. Even if Hojo didn't arrive to check it in person,  _someone_ would come.

He  _should_  be feeling more offended at having to inform the boy of his name at all, knowing that Cloud had clearly heard of Sephiroth even in a backwater place like this, but apparently these brats couldn't recognise  _him_ , and instead he waited for the inevitable recognition.

The boy's eyes widened in awed realisation, and several of the ones trailing behind made excited noises that mollified his annoyance some.

Which was, of course, when the questions started.

"Is that why your coat's all singed? Because it was you who killed the dragon?"

It was a good thing it had been  _dragon_ that had been the focus of the mission Shinra had put on the bulletin, or he would have been having trouble explaining his sorry state to more than just  _village children._

"Does that mean you know  _Sephiroth?"_

_Masamune flashing screaming his name grey skin and dying and dying-_

_-looking at him in shock-_

_and understanding, as he walked out of the training room._

"As well as any can say that they do," he said.  _Better than most,_ came the dark thought.  _I know what he's capable of at his worst._ "And yes. I even have proof," he added with a smile, losing patience.

He was an  _actor._ He had _performed_ , for an audience, and what he was doing now was not nearly so different. He merely had to make it through and find his way back to Midgar.

"... _I wanna be a SOLDIER._ "

He froze at the words that he had picked up, enhanced hearing and the wind carrying them to him, and slowly turned around. The children followed his line of sight toward where the speaker had been hiding, behind the water tower. Laughed, noisily, probably thinking that Genesis was seeing them, and not believing for one second that the  _smallest_ could get in.

They had likely heard this sort of thing from him before, after all.

Blue eyes on a pale face framed by spiked blond hair stared defiantly back at him. The only difference between the ones he was looking at and the ones he  _remembered_ was that these eyes weren't glowing, not even showing a slight bit in the light of day.

"If you think you can survive the monsters," he said eventually, "be my guest."

 _Let them think I was referring to dragons,_ he thought. _If that's what they want to believe._

_..._

He's halfway back to Midgar when he stops long enough to change the bandages on his shoulder again, sees that the blood on the old ones is dried on, the skin underneath tender and pink and he  _stares_.

Stares, because he was supposed to be  _degrading_ , he wasn't supposed to be  _able_ to heal-

And yet, there it was. Sore, aching, and a vulnerability, but  _healing._

He remembered Vincent saying that he'd used high-level healing items in the wake of his burning Jenova, but hadn't thought anything of it. Had forgotten, for a while, that his lungs should have remained burnt and his extremities singed no matter how many Cures were cast.

 _You can't expect to fall from even a low-hanging dumbapple tree and expect to get away with nothing,_ he remembered someone saying, tall and beautiful and who looked nothing like him at all.  _Look at you. Broken arms can take weeks to heal. Everyone will think you're no better than the children who climb up those trees to steal from them, you know that._

His shoulder was - had been, still was - both more and less serious than the broken arm he'd had at ten years old and smarting from the blow to his pride, but...

He takes the time to walk a while, resting his wing, breathing in the air of a part of the Planet that didn't stink of mako while he wasn't racing several thousand feet up in the cold so that no one looked twice at what  _could_ be a bird, if they didn't care enough to wonder what else it might be.

...

 _"You know," the lion-dog creature says - Nanaki, he'd been told, although some merely called him 'Red', and it had only taken a glance at the_ _tattoo to realise that they had similar experiences, experiments all, "it always surprises me, seeing a former SOLDIER so interested in the Lifestream. Most don't even really care, even now. I think most ex-SOLDIERs prefer to ignore anything that serves as a reminder for what they are."_

_They were sat around the Cosmo Candle, the fire flickering and reminding him of Firaga spells and aerial bombings, more than home and stability. He had one knee up to his chin, his hair tied back in a fast and loose ponytail._

_It's his first trip there, Hollander having never spent long if he had gone as far as to go in person, and Genesis having preferred to stay in Banora or search for more substantial leads at the time._

_He'll come back a few more times, to check on Weiss, left in the care of those who know more about the Lifestream and healing than he does._

_Nanaki is sat on his right. His wing is out and curled around him on his left, shielding him from some of the cold, and some of the stares._

_"In case you hadn't noticed," he says, "I am not most former SOLDIERs."_

_"No, most former SOLDIERs can't hold their own against Cloud while running on sheer guts and sparks, from what I hear."_

_He grunts at that, wishing that the story hadn't apparently spread so far, so fast. It would have made things... easier. Nanaki says it in good humour, though, which helps._

_"They used to say that about Sephiroth," he says before he can stop himself. "Angeal and I were the only ones who could keep up with him. At least Cloud has the decency to break a sweat," he adds with a bittersweet smile playing on his lips._

_It made him feel like at least there, he could actually wonder if he might win the next spar, rather than the building frustration of Sephiroth always being that far above him, and Genesis constantly being that far behind._

_Sometimes, the only reason he lost was because Cloud would react in a way that Genesis didn't think he should be able to - a reflexive motion that on anyone else, would have been from watching and fighting Genesis for years, but Cloud and he had only sparred a handful of times. It was something that Sephiroth would do - and for that reason, Genesis never brought it up._

_Nor the fact that the first time it had happened, he had lost the spar due to shock holding him in place, not due to lack of ability to respond._

_"I forget that about you too."_

_He didn't want to say that sometimes he did, too, because that would feel like more of a betrayal than anything else he'd done. He had to remember. Because Angeal was gone, and Sephiroth..._

_In some ways, he felt that this was something else they shared. They were the last, after all. Left behind._

_"The wind sails over the water's surface," he intoned, different from his usual recitations. This was no high drama. "Slowly, but surely..."_

_Life carried on. Like it would with or without them._

_There would come a day when he was gone, too._

_"What do you think it is, then?" There was curiosity in Nanaki's voice, in the way he turned his head. "The play talks about a 'Gift of the Goddess'."_

_Genesis spares a moment to appreciate that despite being a child of his species' standards, Nanaki could tell fine literature when he reads it._

_His hand reaches up to his shoulder, which - even now, years on, aches when the weather is cold, or changes quickly. Thinks about Zack Fair, standing in front of him with Angeal's sword and Angeal's honour and Sephiroth's blood, and later, fulfilling Genesis' childish childhood dream._

_He sighs, and watches, unable not to pick up a few words here and there, as Cloud explains the place they're in to Denzel, as well as why they're there and what they're doing._

_Remembering, Genesis thinks. And reflecting. He usually isn't very good at either - or, sometimes, too good at just the wrong times, he's started to think more recently - and right now is one of those rare times when he's doing both but at the right time, and the right place for it, too._

_"...Healing," he says at last._

_Perhaps it was vague, in a sense. But there was more than one way to heal a man. Zack's pride in SOLDIER even after he had learned to distrust Shinra had given him an example to follow, one that he wished Angeal could have seen for himself, before he had chosen to die. The goddess forcing him to face himself as he was, had been much like how the doctors had often encouraged SOLDIERs to set a broken bone properly before it healed, or before using materia on it, or they would have to re-break it to enable it to heal correctly._

_He'd needed to learn that, given he'd not only been learning combat materia. He really should have kept it in mind._

...

His PHS buzzed with a new message while he was angling down and away from the clouds again, though he only knew that much because the thing was in a coat pocket right next to him, the sound completely muffled by the wind.

Two days, and they'd already sent out a company-wide mail saying that one of their reactors had been damaged 'but still able to continue working'. AVALANCHE had apparently spoken up as soon as they'd heard about it, and taken responsibility. 

It took Genesis a moment to remember that the AVALANCHE that was referred to here, was  _not_ the same one that was more family than organisation, more a team of heroes each in their own right than the mere eco-terrorists that  _this_ one was, if his memory was correct.

He's able to see Midgar in the distance when another mail comes through - an unknown number. No name. 

The only details in the message are the words  _Perhaps with this, my sins will start to be atoned for._ There aren't any attachments. 

Genesis leaves it in the spam folder, but marks it to keep, instead of to be deleted. Thinks of the labs in the mansion destroyed, the books burning, and wishes it gave him more of a sense of satisfaction. Perhaps it would come later.

He should head straight back to HQ, he knows that, both because of the van and because he needs to report back, even though Nibelheim is half a world away from Midgar, and he'd gone without the aid of a helicopter, taking his time to make sure it didn't seem as though he'd travelled too quickly, but...

He abandons the van, no longer caring if it ended up gone by the time he got back, and slips through the crowds in the same way he learned to when he had been hunted down, drawing the shadows around him.

The church is empty, once he arrives, of anything other than flowers. 

There's no Cloud, no Tifa, no children playing around by the water or tending to the flowers.

No Buster Sword over by the altar.

Which is  _good_. 

And yet, at the same time, it  _hurts_ , because for all the peace and tranquility this place has, it feels  _empty_ , hollow, lacking.

Genesis' hands clench into fists. It isn't just the church that feels  _hollow._

He had  _changed_ something. Unless there was something he had never been made aware of concerning just how much Jenova could survive, how little of her would be necessary in order for her to do what she seemed to do best and reach out and  _take_ , and  _change_ , and  _mould into her image_ , letting you almost forget what you'd ever been without her, as if you'd ever been  _anything_ without her...

If he had done what he had intended, then Jenova was  _gone_. Gaia and Goddess alone knew what that meant for the SOLDIER program, given how the process relied on not only mako but also her cells.

Vincent was awake. Awake, and mobile. In all likelihood, already on his way to systematically destroy the next lab. And if the ex-Turk ran into Hojo while he was at it, if the professor decided to investigate matters a little more personally... well, he wasn't Genesis' personal demon to deal with. 

No, he had been Vincent's. Cloud and Zack's, too. And a long list of others. The man's interference with Genesis' own life had been comparably  _impersonal_. 

 _As if using my genes, my cells, to create the Tsviets was 'nothing personal, you merely have something that I want._ He flinched at his own wording, remembering all too well how his own request of Sephiroth hadn't been too far different.  _Nothing personal. I just want to live._  

He grimaced, halfway between laughing bitterly, and simple disgust. 

_Perhaps he was right to leave me like that._

Genesis sighed, and forced himself to relax his tensed muscles, to ease the growing pain in his shoulder. His  _healing_ shoulder. Slowly, but steadily. He'd seen the mako begin to take hold once again, now that he knew what to look for. The irritating itching that had been around for  _days_ before Jenova's destruction had been a  _warning sign._ One that he hadn't paid attention to.

_And now here I am. I thought that I could save the world early, and come striding back in as if nothing had changed._

Something had, though.  _He_ had. Although whether that was caused by what he had destroyed, or what he had  _remembered_ , was another matter entirely-

In the echoing silence of the church, the sounds of the rest of Midgar and the surrounding slums had faded away, but now there had been a  _gasp_ , the acoustics and his enhanced hearing carrying it close.

His hand was on Rapier out of reflex as he stood from the pew and turned, and only relaxed when he realised that it was merely a girl. 

Pale dress, long, braided hair. Slight thing. Probably not a threat, then.

"You don't have to leave if you don't want to," she said, a hand on her heart still, but smiling. Honestly, too. "I just didn't expect to see anyone here this early. You startled me."

Genesis narrowed his eyes at the now clear light of morning beginning to stream through the windows and - more brightly and naturally - through the hole in the roof that was already there. 

If he took too much longer, there would be  _questions_ , whether he was ready to face them or not.

"I was just leaving," he said as he passed her on the way out, a storm settling into his expression like the ones that he'd worked so hard to avoid ever since gaining his short yet limited freedom from Shinra, focusing only on putting one step after another, back toward the den of monsters itself.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Communication is key. Sometimes people are trying to help, and sometimes, they really... aren’t.

Angeal found him once he had made a strategic retreat back to his own rooms.

Having arrived still with his coat blackened in places and in a bad mood, he'd been blessed with the sheer amount of people who had suddenly found somewhere else to be, and he had showered, leaving his shoulder free of bandages for the first time in over two weeks, made a quick report to Lazard, pointed out that he'd not arrived yet by the time Hojo's alarms had gone off for something being wrong at the reactor, he'd had every right to be exhausted. 

But instead of kicking his boots off and collapsing onto his bed for a few hours, there he was, sitting on his old sofa with his coat in his lap and a heavy duty needle and colour-matched thread in his hands. 

"Well.  _That's_ not something I'd ever imagined you doing in your down time."

Genesis' hand slipped, and he swore when the needle jabbed his thumb instead of the leather. Now that he knew that his degradation hadn't truly stuck as he'd thought it had on his return to the past, it wasn't as much of a disaster as it could have been, but the anxiety of wondering how much the new wound would take to heal caused his heart to skip a beat.

A single Restore should have cured most of what he'd suffered in the reactor, but Vincent had been vocal about how much had been  _needed_. Which was aggravating, which made him question why he was doing  _this_ , rather than handing it in to be repaired professionally, now that he could in fact  _do_ that, but...

"I had to learn," responded eventually, once he'd accustomed himself to Angeal's presence again and managed to get back into the flow. "You understand."

They couldn't exactly expect other people to fix the clothes they'd ripped apart when their wings had burst forth and they'd either forgotten or been unable to make allowances for anything in the way. 

He smiled, bitterly, at the remembrance of how it had been him and his own damn words that had caused Angeal to gain his wing - wings, there'd been two of them, though still on the same side - in the first place.

"Actually, no. I can't say that I do." Genesis stilled. Remembered that of  _course_ Angeal wouldn't know. This Angeal hadn't been through that.  _Idiot._ "But fixing things is a useful skill to have."   _If only fixing the rest of this messed up situation I'm in was as easy as fixing my coat, then perhaps I would call it a skill._ "By the way, what caused that?"

Angeal motioned to the tear that Genesis was still mending. It was a good thing he'd already changed into a different set of clothes, or Angeal would have the  _other_ hole, the one in his shirt, to worry over as well.

"Nibel dragon," he lied, not meeting Angeal's eyes as his attention was back on his work. "The same reason why the coat is  _burned_ in places."

It wasn't as though the dragon he'd accepted the mission to go out there in the first place for hadn't been fearsome in its own right; it simply had not, however, been enough to cause as much of a challenge as some of the monsters he'd faced that had been mutated by Sephiroth's will. Even as he was, it had been perfectly manageable for a SOLDIER First Class of his calibre.

Angeal seemed accept the story however. Which was a relief.

"All right," Angeal said. "You look like whatever you faced back there, you..." he sighed. "Just, so long as you know you can come to me if you need to get anything off your chest. Sometimes dealing with things on your own isn't the only honourable thing to do. That's what we have friends for." 

Genesis' hands stilled, but he found himself unable to say anything in response until Angeal had already left, at which point he held his head in one hand, knowing that the rest of the tear would have to be put off, given the way his hands were now shaking.

 _If you knew what I have done, and what I know - about us both - then you wouldn't say such things. It might be better for both of us if I never tell you._  

Visions - memories - of Zack, broad-shouldered and with Angeal's Buster Sword a central part of his silhouette, came into his mind. A symbol of his failures. 

_Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul, pride is lost... would you still consider yourself a monster and throw yourself on another's blade if I weren't trying to turn you against everything you once stood for?_

He found it ironic, that he could still grieve a man lost long ago when he could walk out into the corridor and be face to face with him within a matter of minutes.

The tear in the leather was fixed before he could be called back into the public eye, to paperwork and meetings. Just the same as how he had always been frustrated with his inability to do more delicate work when he had made his first attempts years ago now, the repair was serviceable, but clearly visible even from a distance, and especially so if one knew that there was not supposed to be a jagged line of crimson thread, made all the more obviously out of place by how his coat had no other scars to it.

Back when he had first learned, it had been out of necessity, since it was hardly as though anyone  _else_ around would fix an ex-SOLDIER's clothes. And a coat that recognisable would be a liability, to take to an outsider. So he had  _learned._ Because it was - had been - one of the few things he had thought to take with him, that he'd been _able_ to and wanted to keep, when he'd left.

...

_"You know, you don't have to keep going around in that tattered old thing. The world's hardly all that friendly to Shinra anymore, but there's places and people who don't care, for one reason or another."_

_They'd been walking down the streets of Kalm, and although it was broad daylight and the glow in their eyes from the mako in their blood wasn't so visible, people still looked at them - both of them - with suspicion._

_"I'm offended. You think so little of my handiwork?"_

_"Huh?" Cloud's eyes had widened at the fact that Genesis had, indeed, made the repairs himself. Ducked his head and looked away. Genesis had wondered far too many times how this hesitant person so lacking in self-confidence could be the same one who had saved the world multiple times, and then defeated him, too. "Sorry."_

_Genesis had sighed, irritated._

_"No, you are right in one respect. It has seen better days. But it is also useful like this." The place where his wing came out at, he had left open, having tired of having to seal it closed each time he'd flown, was an inches-long buttonhole hidden under the length of his hair. Other places, he'd added pockets and pouches for useful items and materia. "And besides, I set aside my pride as a SOLDIER once already. Dressing as anything else would feel like - pretending to be something that I am not."_

_Angeal would ask me where my honour had gone, I'd imagine, he'd thought to himself._

_"Well, I was never really in SOLDIER," Cloud had said, and there was none of the pain or regret that usually coloured the words. This time, at least. "But... pride like that. It reminds me of him."_

_Genesis hadn't said anything to that. It had been clear who'd been meant by it. Zack was someone they both had in common, after all._

_It would be a while before either of them spoke again, and when they did, it would be because yet another person had given the two of them a look Genesis had used to connect mostly with the way people reacted when his forces had gone into a town - suspicion, distrust, sometimes outright hatred, and a healthy dose of fear. All of which had been, in retrospect, completely warranted._

_"They look at you the same way they look at me," he'd remarked bluntly. "Don't they know who you are?"_

_Cloud had stopped in the middle of the street, and his expression when Genesis had turned back to face him again had been flat acceptance. It had been odd, in a strange way, the way in which that expression now reminded him uncomfortably of Sephiroth._

_"I'm no-one special." Which was a blatant lie if ever he'd heard one. "They look at you and they see Shinra, they don't care if you were in it just for the money, or because you thought you could do some good, or if you enjoyed it. They don't care if you saved the world. Shinra damned us all, and I'm not going to resent them that."_

_And Cloud had given him a look, much like Sephiroth had done sometimes - though at the same time, it was completely different, completely open and at the same time, so very hard to get a read on - and started walking again, leaving Genesis far behind and trying to catch up, trying to understand what had just been said._

_He had always associated 'hero' with widespread adoration, the way that Shinra had made Sephiroth into a hero, the way that the hero was beloved of the goddess and all he met._

_The idea that this, too, was a simple fantasy was a bitter pill to swallow. Yet at the same time there was some heavy part of his heart that had already begun to understand that this would be the case some time ago._

_..._

He felt fingers grasp at his arm through the leather of his coat as he was walking down the corridor to his office, and it's only the disorienting, lurching feeling of knowing that he isn't there as an intruder or fugitive that reminds him of when he is, that holds him back from slamming Hollander into the wall.

It's a close thing, though. Very close. He still brushes the hand away a little more forcefully than he usually would with the non-enhanced, and feels dark satisfaction from the way Hollander winces.

"This had better be important."

Never mind that he suspected he knew  _exactly_ what this was about. 

The scientist's eyes narrowed, watching him warily as he shook out his hand - and those were things he could see more clearly now, in ways that he'd been blinded to before. Hollander had  _never_ had his interests at heart; it had always been about his own selfish desires... and his own need need to survive above all else.

"You think just because you went off like that, no one would figure something was wrong, is that it?"

_I was right._

"Nothing is wrong."

"Your friends certainly thought there was something up, the way they were worrying."

 _And that is just the sort of low blow that would have me come crawling back to you, time after time._ The constant, steady stream of Hollander telling him, time and time again that  _he_ was the only one that could possibly save Genesis, could  _possibly_ figure out how to find a cure.

"Oh, and I suppose that _you_ were worried as well, were you? Save your breath," Genesis said, lips twitching into a snarl.

Hollander had the gall to shake his head, as though Genesis was simply some unreasonable  _child_. Knowing the scientist's role in his very existence, perhaps that was all he would be viewed as - until the day came when Genesis no longer needed to pretend to love the Shinra Company like he had done before at this age, and Hollander could find himself with Genesis' Rapier through his chest for crimes he clearly had every intention of still carrying out.

"I don't think you understand just how serious this is - if what seemed like it should've just been a minor injury was bothering you so much back then-"

"You don't seem to have been listening to a word I've been saying." The words came out dangerously low, his wing just _itching_ to be released and spread itself for extra dramatic effect. "I had an infection." True enough, if Jenova could be considered a virus. "I got better. And now, you and your  _concern_ are... unnecessary."

How long had he wanted to say those words, to see the reaction on this man's face, when he revealed, even in as thinly veiled a way as this, that  _he_ had found the cure that Hollander had been unable to in all his years of searching? 

The look of shock that he'd been after was tempered by doubt, but Hollander was  _shaken._  

Perhaps a normal infection, a normal wound, could be healed with time and enough healing magics, but  _degradation_...

"Went to someone else, did you?"

Genesis rolled his eyes.  _Not in the way you're thinking of. You never did take the concept of the Gift of the Goddess seriously. Why would you now?_

He turned his back on Hollander, pointedly turning himself back in the direction of his office. 

"Infinite in mystery is the Gift of the Goddess. We seek it thus, and take to the sky."

He only made it a few paces away when Hollander's voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

"That's it, isn't it? And - your coat. Interesting place for a repair job."

For a terrifying moment, Genesis' blood turned to ice, and he forgot to breathe. It had, after all, been Hollander who'd known that the results of Project G would be prone to mutation. He hadn't even seemed entirely too surprised to see a wing sprout from his back, only citing curiosity that there was only  _one._

They stood there, Genesis knowing that his reaction was all but a complete admission, and Hollander unwilling to give any ground, seconds stretching by for far longer than they had any right to, before a Second Class came racing past, knocking the tension out of the air and letting Genesis breathe again as well as pick up his feet to keep moving.

 _It doesn't matter what he knows or doesn't,_ he reassured himself.  _All that does, is that he knows that I will not be going along with whatever he says, just because he thinks that he has some form of power over me._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, Hollander is completely barking up the wrong tree on everything other than his suspicions that Genesis was degrading, and also that the repair is hiding the existence of some form of mutation.


	10. Chapter 10

Genesis' mind turns into white static at the sudden addition of a familiar long blade unexpectedly appearing to clash against his own in the middle of his training.

His body responded automatically, patterns coming back by reflex while his mind is still struggling to catch up - not even Jenova cells at their strongest could recover that fast from a flash of fire to the face, a kick to the stomach area, his sword brought around to-

Nothing.

Adrenaline buzzes in his ears, a warning that something is  _wrong_. The feeling that any moment now, there will be black feathers and silver hair. The conflict between the need to bring out his own wing for the ability to fly and to utilise the advanced combat capabilities it gave him and the agitated feeling that he was  _forgetting_ something, with how the wind didn't sting and the dust didn't dry his eyes or burn his skin-

There's a slight breeze as he turns around, only to see Sephiroth regarding him quite calmly from several feet away. Masamune is still drawn, but not attack-ready. He tilts his head, and the slight wind picks up his hair, obscuring his face even further. 

A Behemoth lay, sliced apart and completely motionless, on the ground between them, before disintegrating into pixels. The landscape stayed the same, although now that he was reminded that it was merely a digital representation of the Midgar wastes, a lot of things made much more sense.

"So. It seems your reaction to my presence wasn't merely a one off occurrence. I had wondered."

"If you wanted to spar, you could have just  _asked_ ," Genesis bit back, nerves still on edge.

"That," Sephiroth said deliberately, "would have defeated the point entirely. And besides," he added, matter of fact, "you've been avoiding me again." 

Genesis' mouth opened to retort that  _no, he had not_ , but his hand tightened around Rapier's hilt. Remembered how his regained memories that had given him the unwanted gift of  _nightmares_ had left him unsure of how to handle his interactions for a time. He looked away, grimacing as he realised that they had  _noticed._

Avoidance hadn't been an issue in the past. His issues hadn't been the kind he'd felt the  _need_ to avoid people over, and in the few cases where they had been, it had been easy enough just to not bring up the problem, pretend it didn't exist. 

Being a deserter and fugitive had meant that the only times people had wanted to find him were when they wanted to hunt him down - and not usually to have a  _friendly discussion_. As though he would have encouraged that sort of idea in the first place, at the time.

Waking up to a world post-Meteor had meant that he had been left to himself for the most part again. It was taken as a given that if you'd been part of SOLDIER, if  _anyone_ had worked for Shinra, then you'd need time to sort your head out.

Here and now... there was none of that. It seemed that he would constantly be discovering new ways in which his temporal displacement made life harder for him.

"...Honestly, I can't imagine what could have happened to you, to cause my presence to be that distressing." Sephiroth sounded... disturbed. Frustrated.  _Of course you wouldn't,_  was Genesis' immediate reaction, but that wouldn't do anything for either of them. "But if that is the case, then I will... remove myself."

Genesis closed his eyes, unsure who or what the surge of disgust and hatred brought about by those words was caused by or aimed at, as Sephiroth straightened, suddenly cold -  _no,_ _withdrawn, that's what Cloud looks like whenever he's in one of his moods -_ and walked past him, dismissing his sword and terminating the program as he went, so that the environment around them dissolved into digital data as it turned back into the training room.

 _This is what I'm good at, isn't it? I push people away, and then I wonder why none of us can handle the pressure._ Cloud's group had never been like this. Cloud's group had stuck together for as long as he'd known them. And before they'd been  _Cloud's group_ , Zack had done the same.  _I wonder if that's why all of this happened in the first place._

 _They would probably know what to do,_ he thought bitterly.  _But the Goddess sent me._

"My friend, your desire is the giver of life, the Gift of the Goddess..."

Sephiroth paused, at the door.

"LOVELESS, again? You've moved to Act Three," he said, the words halting rather than the easy ribbing they'd once been.

"What else? But... no. I think we're still in the prologue."

Remembering what he'd said to Vincent, back in Nibelheim. Remembering how he looked at the calendars and found himself flicking through diaries and organisers, irritated at how slowly time passed, how much was still yet to happen, to be changed, to be  _stopped_ , and he felt like he had hardly  _moved,_ despite everything that he had accomplished.

"What an odd thing to say."

"Well, we still have a long way to go." He turned on his heel, to talk to Sephiroth's back rather than the wall. "I mean what I said before. If you want to spar,  _ask_ me. No one likes the ass who pokes at a person's issues just to see how they'll react," he said wryly.

"Oh? It almost sounds like you're speaking from experience."

Even knowing he was probably just referring to something relatively harmless, Genesis still flinched.

"I can't say I'm not fool enough anymore to say that's wrong," he mused, half in answer and half to himself.

Sephiroth huffed, head tilting forward slightly as he made the amused sound, before picking up his feet again and moving out of the training room altogether, but not before Genesis noticed that despite not knowing what he had been doing, some of the tension in Sephiroth's shoulders had loosened.

"Ha..."

Somehow, he didn't think that it could possibly be as simple as that.

...

"If it weren't for how you seem to have become allergic to doctors recently, I'd warn you away from the science department's floors," Angeal started saying the moment Genesis got in through the door of his office. "Actually, I'm still going to warn you to be careful."

He rolled his eyes, swept his hair away from his face, and leaned Rapier up against the wall before sitting heavily into his chair, and reaching for a pen, which he immediately started to tap onto the desk, taking some small pleasure in the fact that he knew it irritated his friend.

"I know that that already. They've been buzzing around like irritable wasps in white coats for a while now."  _Tap tap tap._ He knew why, too, of course. Not that he was going to admit  _that_  any time soon. "The more pressing matter is why you're  _here_. Don't you have an overexcitable puppy to be training?"

Angeal's brows raised, making Genesis wonder if he'd said something wrong, or if something had  _happened._  

"Lazard wanted you to look over these," Angeal said, waving a hand at a pile of files on his desk that he hadn't even noticed until then, "and I figured I'd stay to make sure you actually did."

Genesis flipped open the top file, only to find a nondescript, unfamiliar face staring back at him. A glance at the rest of the page showed him a name, some basic details, and notes from the Instructors that tested the cadets.

He opened up a few others, creating a small pile of chaos on his desk. Once or twice, a name or face stirred faint recollections in the back of his mind - years old, dusty memories - and even rarer, was the one time when he  _knew_ he remembered the prospective cadet, but that wasn't necessarily a  _good_ thing.

"Lazard seems to have mixed up which department he's running, then. This is SOLDIER, not human resources. Or-" He cut himself off. There was no way that saying that SOLDIER  _were_ the human resource would be taken well. 

Angeal rolled his eyes, smiling even though Genesis could tell that there was at least some annoyance in his friend, too.

"That's more or less what Sephiroth said, but at least he's able to get out of it with the excuse that they're sending him back off to the frontlines in the next day or so. And supposedly, according to Lazard at least, they seem to think that if they play things right, the war will be over soon, so they'll be able to be more picky when it comes to new recruits."

Genesis bit back a snort at the poor excuse the science department had come up with; if Shinra had the resources, then they would continue creating SOLDIERs, and if they had the SOLDIERs, then they would  _create_ their own wars. The one they'd had with Wutai had been that way.

His amusement bled out at the reminder of how little time he had left.

"And they expect us to be able to tell just by looking at paperwork?" he asked.  _Typical Shinra._

Not for the first time, he was struck by how strange it was that he was  _working for_ _them_ again. 

"Maybe they just didn't want to terrorise the cadets so early into their training."

His hand stilled as his eyes passed over a photo of a cadet with blond hair, but it was too curly, too dark, the face wrong, and when he looked closer, the eyes were still a light brown. Had to remind himself that no, Cloud would not be here yet, because if nothing else Genesis had flown back, and Hojo had probably used a company helicopter to get as close as he could. Cloud, having none of that, would take longer. _Far_  longer.

He had to assume that in the original timeline he'd come from, none of this had happened. He certainly couldn't  _remember_ being asked to do such a thing before, no matter how distant or close he'd ever been with any of the cadets. Shinra had vetted the SOLDIER intake on basic merits and a psychological assessment to ensure they'd make it through the mako injections, and any that hadn't made it past that, they didn't hear anything further of, and that didn't always mean they'd just gotten shunted into the infantry. 

Which meant that he might even  _recognise_ some of these names and faces, which should in theory give him an edge - in theory, at least.

In practice, all looking at the files was doing for him was piling frustration onto more frustration - the overwhelming realisation that despite having lured at least a good number of these men and women - teenagers still, here, the birth dates couldn't lie unless the candidates had, and the faces looked _young_ sometimes - he hardly remembered who they were. Who they'd  _been._

He almost let out a shaky laugh, holding his face in the hand that wasn't turning the pages of the files.

 _I used them._  

He'd known before. He'd had plenty of time to come to terms with the fact, even before Zack had reminded him of what having  _SOLDIER pride_ even  _meant_. He'd been  _reminded,_ oh so politely, when Deepground had 'requested' his aid, and made him aware of what  _else_ had been done with his genetic information.

_They thought I cared. Perhaps I had, before. They were wrong. I only cared about myself._

"I worry about you, sometimes."

Genesis tensed, abruptly reminded of Angeal's presence, having become so immersed in himself and his memories that he'd forgotten he wasn't alone. 

"Perhaps you're right to," he muttered under his breath, not looking away from a face that he  _knew_ that if he stared at it long enough, he would remember something he wished best left forgotten.

"What was that?"

His eyes finally closed. "When the war of the beast's brings about the world's end, the goddess descends from the sky, wings of light and dark spread afar..."

 _They're sending us all off to die valiantly for their cause. They think that Sephiroth will continue to be the perfect toy soldier they modelled him into_ _being, never once thinking that he might become bigger than any of this, or realise that the chains that bind him are as flimsy as cardboard, like I did._

His pen began to tap again, a smile, not entirely pleasant, playing on his lips.

"Genesis..."

Angeal's tone was worried again, but a different  _sort_ of worry. It was almost nostalgic, the way it reminded him of how Angeal always had worried too much when he'd been planning something reckless. It was too bad he wasn't going to be able to share those ideas of his this time around.

 "You're planning something again, aren't you," Angeal carried on. "And you aren't going to tell anyone what you're doing again either, are you?" His friend looked away, and sighed. "When you went off last time, we had no idea where you'd gone until Lazard told us. We had to  _ask_. And when you came back..."

Angeal trailed off. For the first time perhaps, Genesis noticed how  _tired_ his friend was. 

_...Honestly, I can't imagine what could have happened to you, to cause my presence to be that distressing. But if that is the case, then I will... remove myself._

"Angeal, I..."

He wanted, more than anything in that moment, to explain everything, let the words fall from his mouth like dumbapples over the fences and walls that he seemed to have put up without even having realised that he had been putting down the wood and bricks between them. A peace offering.

He closed his eyes for just one moment, and saw Banora burning in front of him as he watched - an empty town with nothing left to destroy, as the Turks had merely been destroying the evidence of his own crimes.

"Zack's been complaining that he was actually starting to get somewhere with you, you know. Keeps saying you look at him like you can see his potential."

He could almost laugh. 

How could he say that he sometimes had that look in his eye because he  _had_ seen their future - a future where Zack had achieved that potential, carried Angeal's Buster Sword, because Angeal was  _dead?_

He could just imagine the arguments, the accusations, the dismissals, the weapons drawn...

Genesis shook his head.

"I'll see what I can do," he said instead. 

His mind wandered toward the date. It was late September, now. He felt like he was lying.

...

_He'd left Edge and Midgar behind without having told anyone, not long after regaining his energy, and being able to move around without someone looking like they were going to hold him at sword point simply for stepping out of line._

_It's a familiar route, to Banora. He could probably fly there in his sleep, like how a chocobo knew its way home._

_The journey had still taken a while, though, but that'd mostly been because he'd made an effort not to fly near too many people, and in the past three years, people had been rebuilding, and creating entirely new towns. It had changed the landscape, and the world had seemed a different place._

_He's sure there's a an old children's story along those lines. From before Shinra, but sanitised so that anything the company had been displeased with had been removed - about a man who slept for a hundred years inside a crystal, and who had woken up to find that nothing was familiar, and all his friends were old._

_Banora itself, he'd found as he'd approached on the back of a truck, had not changed all that much, though._

_If anything, the Lifestream must have found it easier to burst forth here, coming up through ways that were already open. A few places seemed a little more worn away than before, but in general..._

_What was new, was the few huts that had sprung up near the orchards, people picking the apples, which had made his fingers twitch for his materia, because some of those were his trees - his, damn it - but he had forced himself to look away, to focus on what he'd come here for._

_The caves were colder than he remembered, but the routes hadn't changed._

_Rapier had been right where he'd left it, where it had fallen after his fight with Zack. The once beautiful sword had been caked with dirt, with a few patches of rust in places that had become damp, but none of that had mattered. It was and had been an old friend, a constant he had been glad to see once more._

_He could still remember wiping it down briefly before wrapping it up to clean it properly later, and leaving._

_"Wha- hey! Be careful in here, these caves can be dangerous!"_

_He'd laughed, at the voice that had echoed in toward him. It must have been late on the surface, and the sun had always set away from the entrance, but it had never been all that dark inside, and he'd known the way like any child did their own playground. Their home._

_"You don't need to worry about me," he'd said, bemused, as he'd come out._

_The man, who had been hauling a heavy crate of apples, had turned. Backed away, first one step, then another._

_"You..." Fear had laced the man's voice. His eyes, glowing, were wide. "They said you were dead," he said. "What do you want with us? Shinra's gone!"_

_"Even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return..." He'd shaken his head. "Death and rumours of my demise have hardly held me back before. I fail to see why I should have adhered to them." He'd taken an apple, a single Banora White, while his other hand still held his old sword still in its wrappings. "As for your questions... nothing. I don't want anything from you."_

_He could still remember the terror in_ _the eyes of the former SOLDIER even weeks later, when he finally told Cloud, which had been while he was maintaining the sword back to perfect condition after its long disuse._

_"I didn't merely recognise him," he'd said, in a light tone as though it wasn't important. As though it was simply some trivial matter, another item on the delivery list. "He served under me during the war. I'm fairly sure the only reason he didn't follow me when I encouraged desertion was something to do with not wanting to disappoint his family - saying that he'd attempt to work on Shinra from the inside."_

_Cloud hadn't said anything, although by the frown on his face he wasn't entirely unaffected._

_"The next time we saw each other," Genesis had carried on, harsh cracks in the edges of his carefree attitude appearing in both his voice and the more jagged movements he was making while cleaning, "I only saw him as an obstacle in my way. Honestly, he's lucky to be alive."_

_He'd told himself that was at least one positive in the entire situation. At least if you met the people you'd wronged, they were still alive to meet. You couldn't meet the ghosts you'd left behind._

_After a while, he had resigned himself to the fact that he more than likely wasn't going to get any sort of reply. But then, Cloud was hardly the talkative type. Zack had been, would have said something already, but no matter how many of Zack's mannerisms he could see coming to the surface from time, Cloud wasn't Zack._

_Then-_

_"I think... I think I know what you mean," Cloud had said. He'd looked over. Bright blue eyes had looked troubled, the same way that Genesis had started to recognise in any of them when they began to think too much of the past. "When we were fighting Shinra, I... for a long time, I didn't even really know who I was. But then when I did, when I remembered... I realised I'd probably been killing a lot of the people I once fought beside. Some of them... even recognised me. And I still had to keep fighting. It isn't the same, but..."_

_Understanding._

_They were both traitors to their own people, just on different sides of history. One remembered with fear and the other looked up to._

_He'd nodded, and the subject had turned toward lighter subjects the next time anyone spoke._

_..._

Genesis walks out of Lazard's office and doesn't realise that he has his hand at his shoulder until Angeal asks him if it's giving him grief again. He shakes his head, and shrugs it off, because it hadn't been. 

Old habits were hard to kill, and it's easy to get lost in memories when events play out a little  _too_ similarly.

He'd been given his marching orders once again. To Wutai, and Fort Tamblin. He could still remember the way that Lazard had danced around the subject of what he would  _actually_ be doing the first time around; the way that they had both treated the briefing almost as a scene in some gaudy theatre production full of intrigue and betrayal.

One of the more dry derivative works of LOVELESS had focused on the politics of the countries at war, and the effect the heroes' actions had on the world. It had been both similar to, and nothing at all like, that.

This time, Lazard had glanced at him aside several times, words prodding lightly at prospective openings. Genesis had made a few pointed remarks, implications, loopholes in supposedly simple things.

 _Genesis Rhapsodos holds no love for Shinra,_ he had communicated with everything unsaid and implied.  _But he is a hero, no matter what manner of monster Shinra has made him, and Goddess help you if you try to make him anything less._

He knew the difference now. At least, wanted to think that.

But now - he brushed the hair from his face to keep his hand from going back to his shoulder, put on a smile, and kept walking.

...

He slips out of the Shinra building as it starts to grow dark, not bothering to change his clothes but walking with that exact sort of confidence that made people question what they were seeing, made them assume that he clearly had business being where he was.

It wasn't hard. It was something he'd had practice in since his childhood, after all, and had even encouraged Angeal to it when his friend had looked panicked enough that he  _would_ have been caught if he hadn't calmed down one time; Genesis would have been annoyed if he had been, given how Angeal, despite the difference in status, had been  _his_ friend. One of his  _only_ friends back then, at that. He'd preferred Angeal out of trouble, if possible.

The theatre he found wasn't in LOVELESS Avenue. Instead, his feet had taken him to somewhere between the slums and the lower class parts of the entertainment district. 

" _When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end, the goddess descends from the sky,"_ the man on the stage was saying. Genesis mouthed the words of the introduction to the act along with him - the bare bones of the story, the only thing that anyone could ever agree on, considering how many versions and derivative works there had been even at the time when it had been new. Now, even a slight change in wording could completely alter the tone of a scene.

It wasn't one of the expensive, extravagant productions to be found in one of the more upper class regions. Nor was it one of the philosophical, meaningful productions to be found in Junon, where the university students there used it as their outlet for exploration of the meaning of life.

The sets were shaky. The lines, often far more colloquial than Genesis was used to. Costumes were haphazard.

But the  _performance_ , despite everything else, had heart. For that, he could appreciate it, well worth his time far more than the easy viewing that he had been anticipating. A pleasant surprise.

Lost amid his own thoughts - about the play, their interpretation of it, the war, among other things - he knocks into someone on his way to the train that leads back to Sector Eight, and from there, the Shinra Building. He almost wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't heard the cut off cry as they fell.

He watches as she - and he even thinks he recognises her, auburn hair in a braid and light blue clothes - picks herself up again before he could even offer to help, if he had chosen to.

"Oh! I remember you," she said, "From the church, right?" She smiled. "Just passing through again, are you?"

Genesis raised his eyebrows at her. 

"Do you have a habit of remembering everyone who passes through that church?"

"No. Just the-" her face twisted for a moment, as though she were trying to figure out the right words to use.  _As though she's forgotten her script_ , said the part of him that was still riding the high of having come out of a halfway decent performance. "Interesting ones," she finished.

"Fascinating," Genesis drawled out. "Unfortunately, I don't have time to ask just how you find me  _interesting._ "

"That's all right. I'm sure we'll meet again."

The words followed him all the way back to his rooms in Shinra. She'd probably meant that given how they'd met by chance twice already in spite of Midgar being the sprawling metropolis it was, the probability was high that it would happen again.

A shiver ran down his spine, however, remembering the exact way that something about her had tugged on the edges of his perception - not quite there, but almost, like a word on the tip of his tongue. 

_From the church, right?_

_It was her church. Or at least, we all think of it as hers. It's where Cloud found her..._

He shrugged off his coat, and began to lay out his things so that they would be ready for the morning. They wouldn't leave until mid-morning, but it was still better to be prepared for every eventuality.

Some of the stitching was beginning to pull apart on the repair job he'd done when he'd arrived back that day; he would have to fix it again. 

But not tonight.

 _The goddess is laughing at me,_ he thought, just as he drifted off.  _There's something I'm not seeing._


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Promises, promises... some are more clear than others. So, too, is the effect we have on other people.

_Ripples form on the water's surface..._

_..._

"So... is he always like this?"

Zack's head tilted at an angle as he thought his question over after saying it aloud, and Angeal tried to hold back the mixture of exasperation and fondness that caused.

"I'm guessing you don't mean either the tactician, or the enemy commander."

"Uh, _no_ \- oh."

The eyes blinked, and Zack slouched in his seat. And even then, there was the steady staccato of a heavy combat boot rapidly thudding against the floor of Angeal's office. _He really had got that sidetracked again, huh._   _And they wonder why I call him a puppy._

"Thankfully, a lack of focus in lessons like these won't cost you your life the way it would during a real mission in the field. Well, go on. You might as well get it out."

He knew by now that when Zack lost focus most of the time it was because he couldn't keep his mind - or his body - trained on one thing. But when his student's thoughts caught on something, they tended not to unstick until whatever it was had been sorted out.

Zack was a little like Genesis, in that respect, Angeal realised now. Perhaps in the past it might have been funny to think of it like that; now, with everything that'd been going on, he couldn't help feeling  _concerned._

"It's just - you've known him for a long time, right?" Ah. Zack was thinking about Genesis, too. "But I've been here a few years now, and you've been working with me for a while, but I hardly even knew you were  _that_ close before he started butting in on my materia training." The rush of words slowed to a halt as Zack stared briefly into space. "You know... he kinda reminds me of someone I knew, a while back."

"Oh?"

"It was back when I was a Third, before we even met properly," Zack said, staring off into space as he recalled. "There was this guy, a Second I knew. He was cool, but kind of a show-off. Kept saying he'd do something amazing and get in the news one of these days."

Angeal snorted, smiling slightly at old memories. Zack didn't know how close to the mark he was, given how much Genesis had been like that when they'd been younger. 

"I'm guessing that's not all."

Zack shook his head. 

"Nuh-uh. One day, he just up and vanished. Took me asking a few of his friends to find out he'd been drafted into Wutai." Zack's expression grew serious, and Angeal sighed. "He came back, and we all thought he was fine. He  _looked_ fine, and acted like it, but... sometimes he'd space out. And he'd pick more fights than before, too."

_That... sounds an awful lot like what Genesis has been going through. Apart from the fact that he's been in the frontlines of Wutai as many times as I have, and he's never reacted like that to this degree before. Or to Sephiroth._

_But we're his friends, surely we'd have noticed if something else had happened? Wouldn't he tell us?_

"But... he disappeared again a few months later. And that time, he... he never came back. I wasn't even that close, so I didn't really know until a while after the emails went out."

An image of Genesis giving a half-hearted wave without even turning back to face him as he left for his own mission came abruptly to mind, and he tried to tell himself that the sudden anxiety it caused was unfounded, because Zack was talking about a Second who'd probably had no prior field experience, and this was  _Genesis._

"Up until recently, I just figured he'd died a hero, you know? Protecting people. Saving someone. But I asked someone, because I needed to  _know_ , and they said he'd frozen up in a fight."

"I'm sure we don't need to worry about Genesis though, Zack. Although I'm sure he'd be touched by the concern." 

 _Or irritated at the thought that he needed it,_ Angeal thought wryly.

Zack looked back at him again, leaning forward, and Angeal was reminded yet again of some small dog. So innocent of the way the world worked, so eager to please. To make people happy.

"I want to believe that. Really, I do. But..." He shook his head, bangs flapping in front of his eyes not doing anything to stop that resemblance to a puppy. The thudding that was restarting from under the desk made Angeal think of a tail hitting something repeatedly. "Something feels wrong."

"All right, how about this. When Genesis gets back, I'll talk to him again. But until then, you still have to focus on the things you're supposed to be doing in the here and now."

Zack grinned, eyes lighting up in a way that had nothing to do with mako. 

"Thanks, Angeal!"

Angeal shook his head and tried not to worry too much over how if Zack was so certain someone needed to talk to Genesis, that something was wrong, then... he could only hope that they really were all just making a fuss over nothing. If not - Genesis, no matter what happened, was still his friend, and he'd have to do  _something_ , even if Zack hadn't asked it of him.

...

_The wandering soul knows no rest..._

...

Lazard sighed heavily not for the first or last time, and pressed the fingers of the hand not holding his most recent reports against his temples, to stave off a headache. 

He had been counting on Hollander being able to secure Genesis' cooperation in their plans - plans that had revolved primarily around the use of the Copy technology that would have granted them an army with which to destabilise Shinra. Right up until several weeks ago, things seemed to have been progressing well enough, with Genesis' own personal... issues... being ideal grounds to work with in terms of getting him to agree; if he knew what Shinra had done to him, then he would certainly wish to turn on the company just as the others in the small conspiracy had grown to. 

The changes in the SOLDIER's demeanour, and especially in such a short period of time, had been unexpected. Not to mention concerning. Not simply for the sake of their plans, but also with regards to purely personal reasons.

When Hollander had suspected degradation based on changes in behaviour - and his suspicions had seemed well founded when Genesis had showed signs of physical change as well - the doctor had insisted that he would be able to use that as leverage of a sort, given how he had such an extensive understanding of the project that had created both Genesis and Angeal.

He had also said that in theory he should have been able to find some sort of cure for the genetic instability in due time, the thought in mind that they would be able to extend the lives of both the SOLDIER and their army, and yet...

Genesis had refused.

Point blank, in fact. Not agreeing to so much as talk to Hollander. Giving neither of them any opportunity with which to explain the situation to him, nor to encourage him in any sort of direction.

That had not been all - his general attitude had become markedly different, alternately either interacting more with others, or withdrawing entirely. Taking missions that were altogether far simpler than a First of his calibre should be expected to lower himself to and quite unlike his prior attitude which had him constantly striving to push himself to greater heights or - in one such case at least - leaving without due warning and without backup on a mission which even most Firsts would have been required to bring at least a Second or experienced Third along with them.

So, overall, their guarantee had turned into something unreliable. A loose cannon. 

He had given the Genesis one last offer, a last chance after all of the times he had refused to talk with Hollander, or be treated. It hadn't been openly worded as such, but Genesis was an intelligent man, and Lazard had known that he would be able to interpret his meaning easily enough.

Genesis had read his meaning quite clearly, of course. And had also summarily enough dismissed it all.

Yet, he had to admit, in such an...  _interesting_   _way._

There was a fire there in his eyes that Lazard couldn't say had been there before. An anger that was  _stronger_ than before. It wasn't merely the same ambition that drove Hollander, which he had seen echoes of in the young SOLDIER before. In fact, that need to improve and be better than even Sephiroth seemed to have taken a backseat to something that he clearly saw as more important.

 _"There's definitely something up with him - I don't know how, but I think someone's been slipping him information without anyone knowing,"_  he remembered Hollander saying recently. Though neither of them had been able to make any headway on figuring out who that could be. _"Says he got better, but if I'm right about what was going on, he can't have been able to on his own. Whatever they've told him, I think he's figured out that being part of Project G means he's capable of some sort of mutation - I haven't been able to get a decent blood sample to figure out what caused it, but there was a tear in his coat and a hasty patch job he sure looked like he didn't want to bring attention to."_

Lazard sighed, and gave up on filing mission reports for the time being. There was no way to change what had already happened, after all, and the only way forward was to work with what they had, rather than what they only wished they had. So instead, he picked up one of the files on the prospective cadets that he'd been having the Firsts take a look at, one that he had put to one side even after he had given his decision.

Just a glance at the first page showed that it had been signed off by Genesis himself.

Notes were written in the margins as well as the sections where they were supposed to be, jotted down in what was usually a neat cursive and turned pointedly less so the more irritated with the work and the prospective cadets he became to the point of near illegibility. 

 _Idealistic,_ one note that his eyes lighted on as particularly interesting read,  _but far too naive. Liable to become non-dependable as he learns harsh truths. SOLDIER isn't the place for people to join up if they want to change the status quo._

He closed the file, wondering what any of the others on the board of directors would think if they saw that one of their prize SOLDIERs, Shinra's most valuable and effective weaponry - whether Scarlet it or not, and no matter Heidegger's grumblings - harboured such feelings for the company he served.

Perhaps, then, it was fortuitous that - cooperation or no - he had no plans of letting that happen, and he was fully capable of going over the First's head. He still had his own plans even if Hollander's fell through, and Shinra was going to need a little more, ah,  _idealistic_ , if it was ever going to have any hope of change.

...

_("So, Genesis, is it?"_

_"You're the new Director, aren't you? Lazard."_

_"I am. I was thinking it would be good to get to know some of you a little better - after all, we'll be working together from here on in."_

_"If you wish to ask something, you merely have to ask. You'll find I'm not nearly so infinite in mystery as some would assume."_

_"Ah, so... LOVELESS, is it?"_

_"Of course. My dream is to become a hero worthy of the great play itself. And in order to do that, I first need to become on a level with- no, better than Sephiroth himself."_

_"I see..."_

_"...you think I'm not serious?"_

_"Hm? No, no. I suppose... the unattainable dreams are probably the best, I would say.")_

_..._

Colm sat nervously in the back of the Shinra issue van, bracing himself against the bumps and jolts of the uneven road.

He wasn't the only one, though the others were far less tightly wound up. Or maybe they were just better at pretending they weren't - they'd long since taken their helmets off, and Denson was talking about his girlfriend who apparently knew some famous actress while Mack made rude jokes that had Colm blushing and Denson alternatively laughing and hitting the other Second hard enough he'd be breaking bones if they weren't all enhanced. Someone else whose name he'd forgotten was complaining yet  _again_ about how SOLDIERs were expected to use swords - he preferred daggers and speed over brute force and ignorance, always had.

Colm's eyes were drawn to the fourth and last person in the back of the van that was taking them further toward Wutai and war, red twitching.

Red coat, red hair, red sword... even the book that looked like its page hadn't been turned for nearly an hour was sort of a pinkish-red. Or a reddish-pink. 

Commander Rhapsodos was like that, though. Even though he probably stood out on the battlefield like he had a target painted on his back. If Colm knew one thing about what he'd do with the honour of being chosen for First - if he ever did, he thought they were still figuring out if they'd made the right choice in making him a Second - he knew that he wouldn't alter his uniform so he'd end up  _dying quicker._

Maybe the Firsts only get away with it because they're just  _that good._

Someone leaned over to take a look out the window and made an offhand comment about the weather. Something about the chance of rain. Their commander twitched again, and for a single moment Colm could see the man's eyes from behind that old book of his - it was more the Shinra Library's, but by this point everyone agreed that it was basically property of Genesis - and there was something...  _wrong_ about them.

Colm would have preferred not to have seen anything, or at least be able to pretend as such, but those eyes, mako blue like the rest of them, caught and held his uncomfortably for a moment, and when the First looked away he was left feeling as though something had happened, but he wasn't sure  _what_. Or even why.

The others carried on like nothing had happened. He didn't think they'd even noticed. The commander's hand went up to his shoulder, as though there was an old wound there, but came away to brush the hair out of his eyes.

"There is no hate," he read out, "only joy. For you are beloved by the Goddess."

He shivered slightly, and rubbed at his arms. Some breeze had come through the window, and Denson started shouting for the other Firsts in the front to close it, the others backing him up.

Later, when they were stopped for the evening and making camp since they were far enough away from any settlement that they couldn't just stay in town, someone clapped their hand on his shoulder, the unexpected nature of it sending him stumbling more than the strength of the other SOLDIER.

"First time off to war for you, is it? Don't worry, you're going to be fine."

As he tries to settle down in his tent, snoring coming from all around him, he puts his finger on why the lines spoken aloud in the van had felt so off.

He wasn't sure what was going on, but he'd always had a way with knowing when people were lying just to make you feel better. The SOLDIER earlier, he could understand. 

Commander Rhapsodos, on the other hand, he was less sure of, and what worried him about  _that_ was that if this was the man leading them, and he was trying to convince himself things were better than they were, then what hope did the rest of them have?

...

 _("_ _We aren't going to Wutai. Are we, sir?"_

_"No, SOLDIER, we are not. Do you trust me?"_

_"Of course, sir! We all do. But with all due respect, unless it's confidential..."_

_"You'll learn soon enough. Along with the others. Until then, all you need to do is follow me."_

_"Is this something to do with what you were talking about before?"_

_"It has everything to do with that - and more. So, tell me - would you prefer to continue with someone more likely to tell you the truth... or slink back to Shinra and carry on being a mere attack dog ready to be commanded by them?"_

_"..."_

_"I somehow thought not. Well? Carry on.")_

_..._

Hojo scowled at the computer he was working on, and his notes on paper next to it. Simple mathematics, science that did not - could not - lie, and could not feel emotion, and yet it felt as though the results were laughing in his face.

He knew perfectly well that the incident at the Nibelheim reactor hadn't been the work of monsters, or a minor meltdown - reactors never had  _minor_   _meltdowns_ , and whoever believed that they did was clearly an idiot of the highest degree - but the purposeful, wanton destruction of his own life's work.

The fire might have  _seemed_ to have been out of control, but that was only to the untrained eye. If you knew what to look for, it was blatantly obvious that  _someone_ had done this. The epicentre of the so-called blast had originated in Jenova's room, which could only have happened if someone had been able to break in through the door, or get past the secure locking mechanisms that had been put in place from the construction of the very reactor itself.

Much as he hated to admit it, however, the vandalism that had occurred was of a second priority compared to one thing.

With Jenova as good as gone given that the few samples that his team had been able to recover had been contaminated and unfit for further use, it meant that the science department was going to be working with dwindling supplies in the months and years to come.

All of his plans - not to mention his position and status - would be in ruins just as surely as Jenova herself if he failed to find some solution, because if the science department could no longer deliver, then the President would sooner or later turn to...  _other means._

Machines would never be able to do what Hojo's SOLDIER program had been capable of. They had been able to send Sephiroth against  _the entire Wutai army_ and he had come back the victor with barely a mark on him, and saying that he did the job of of even one  _hundred_ men was an understatement.

For now, he would encourage the line of thought that with the end of the war, they would need fewer SOLDIERs, allowing him to better utilise the remaining J-cells. Both on economising use, and... if possible... finding some way of further refining the process.

But later - oh, and  _later_ would come - well, he was sure that he would be able to mix work with the pleasure of seeing whoever had done this suffer for the inconveniences they had caused him.

...

_My friend, do you fly away now?_

...

Cloud's feet banged against the wood of the water tower he was sat on, hands on his knees and trying not to think of how cold it was, or what he'd feel like come morning if she didn't turn up. She'd been there when the SOLDIER had been leaving, when the others had laughed at him for saying that  _he_ wanted to be SOLDIER, too.

She hadn't laughed, though. She'd watched him, and his face had burned when he'd realised, but she hadn't laughed.

So he'd built up his courage and asked her to meet with him here - in the middle of town, in the middle of the night, when the stars were all out. Because it was pretty, and she liked pretty things, and saying something under the stars made it seem more... serious, somehow.

He sighed, head hanging slightly as he started to wonder how much longer he'd be waiting, and if he should just give up after all. He was just Cloud, after all. She'd never thought he was that much important to her before, so why meet up with him like he'd asked?

Which was, of course, when he heard footsteps on the tower, loud against the quiet of the night - or, as quiet as it could get with the wolves and dragons in the mountains, and the couple in the house a few away from his own home who were arguing over something.

"Sorry I'm late," Tifa said. Cloud found himself grinning stupidly. She'd  _come._ "You said you wanted to talk to me about something?"

That brought him back down to earth, and reminded him of why they were there in the first place.

"Yeah," he said, swallowing down his nerves. He'd practiced this enough times. He could do it. "I'm... going to leave town. Soon, I think. I'm going to go to Midgar."

He felt sure - in fact, he'd never felt more sure of anything else before.

Tifa, however, sighed and looked down and away.

"...All the boys are leaving town," she said, almost quiet enough for him to wonder if she'd just been thinking aloud and he hadn't been meant to hear.

He shook his head all the same.

"But I'm different from all of them! I'm not just going to find a job. I want to join SOLDIER. I'm going to be the best there is, just like Sephiroth!"

Tifa crossed her arms on her knees, and looked out - maybe at the stars, maybe at the mountains, maybe at the village he'd be leaving behind soon. 

"Sephiroth, huh..." Cloud nodded. "And it's got nothing to do with that SOLDIER guy who came up here to deal with the dragons a few weeks ago?"

He shrugged, and ducked his head.

"He said he _knew_ Sephiroth," he mumbled to the ground several feet away. What were the  _chances_ \- who knew, if he got there, maybe he'd be able to find the man again, somehow. And he'd been First Class too, making Cloud wonder if  _all_ of the Firsts knew each other. "And he's... strong, too. He'd have to be, to take on one of our dragons on his own."

"Right..." Tifa said, still sounding like her thoughts were only half there. "Isn't it hard, to join SOLDIER?"

Shinra didn't tell outsiders much about how to get in, but everyone knew how hard it could be. Cloud kicked a foot against the edge of the water tower, once.

"...I probably won't be able to come back home for a while," he admitted.

He stood abruptly, scowling out at the stars. 

_"If you think you can survive the monsters, be my guest."_

He'd be lying if he he said the First who'd come - Genesis, his name was Genesis - hadn't had any impact on him. Sometimes he wondered if the man had been trying to warn him away - but then the other boys would tell him that there was no way he'd make it, and his mother would fuss over him, and he'd remember why he was doing this. 

He'd show them all, that he could do it, that he could become SOLDIER, that he was more than whatever they thought he was. That he could be more than just the scrawny blond kid.

Besides. There were times when he remembered the look they'd shared, the glowing blue of the SOLDIER's eyes looking  _right at him_ , and feel that it  _can't_ have just been a warning.

It was an invitation. A  _challenge_. 

He had to believe that. He  _had_ to. If he did, then he could really believe that he could actually get in.

A noise made him look back at Tifa, wondering if she'd said something.

"Huh?"

She didn't so much as glance up at him, instead looking straight ahead.

"Will you be in the papers, if you do well?" she asked, whimsically enough that Cloud wondered if she was being serious.

He nodded anyway.

"I'll try."

Her feet kicked, lightly thumping the wooden slats of the water tower, and she hummed.

"Hey, why don't we make a promise?" She nodded to herself in a way Cloud had seen her do with all of her friends before, like she'd convinced herself of something on the spot, but she still wasn't sure of it. "Um... if you get really famous and I'm ever in a bind... you'll come save me, right?"

The last of it was rushed, and it took Cloud's brain a few seconds to catch up with what his ears had just heard. 

"What?"

"Whenever I'm in trouble, my hero will come rescue me," Tifa explained - if that was an explanation. "I'd like to at least experience that once."

He still didn't understand.

"What?"

He shuffled a little further around the water tower's edge before sliding back down and holding onto his knees.  _Why me_ , he couldn't help but think. He wanted to be that, for her to see him that way, but still he couldn't help wondering why- why  _him._

He could just about make out that Tifa had craned her head over to look at him better.

"Come on, promise me!"

But sometimes you couldn't ask  _why_ you had to just take what was given and go with it, so he nodded.

"All right... I promise."

It wasn't as though she was asking him to do anything he wouldn't have done anyway, after all. Putting it in a promise just made it... different.

...

_To a world that abhors you and I?_

...

He awoke to darkness and the dewy smell of morning tent and the sound of his own laboured breathing as he tried to get himself back under control with his hands going to his chest and coming away dry and free of blood and slowly realising that the reason his clothes were sticking to him was because of sweat and he'd been sweating because of a nightmare not a fight-

The tent's flap was pushed open while his eyes were still adjusting to the lack of light and his mind was reminding him that the caves had been lit by Lifestream and crystals and water and there was _none_ of that here, and the pallet he was lying on wasn't the best thing he'd ever slept on - his rooms both at Shinra and in Seventh Heaven and his own apartment had been better - but it wasn't the hard, cold stone of the ground in the underground, either.

"Uh- sir...?"

 _"What?"_ The man - or was it boy? There were enough people sent to war who weren't even old enough to drink that it was more likely than not - tensed, but didn't back away. Brave, then. Or foolish. "It had better be good, if you're waking me up at..." He reached out beside him. His handset lit up the darkness, the lock screen showing the Shinra company's logo in black and red - and the time. "Gone half two in the gods-forsaken morning."

They were being ambushed, perhaps. And yet, if they were, then he would have heard screaming. Or shouts. Or someone would have already attempted to take  _him_ out, and there would be at least one dead body in his tent rather than a terrified Third. Who had probably drawn the short straw to wake up the Commander for something  _inane._

"Ah- actually... we, we thought we'd heard noises from. From your tent, sir."

Sounds. From  _his_ tent. When he was fairly sure that if someone had tried to attack him, it shouldn't be him people should be worried over.

He blinked to get rid of the way that his mind had overlaid the Third's face - somewhat pointy, with dark hair and big ears - with his own. A layover from his dreams. The Third didn't say anything, or even move, while Genesis came to his long overdue understanding of what had happened.

"Out." He said the word flatly, but the temperature dropped all the same. " _Now_."

The Third scrabbled away like he couldn't move fast enough, leaving him alone with his memories once again.

After a few breaths, and the realisation that no one else was coming, that nothing else was going to happen, he let his head fall into his hands.

Eventually, his heart rate and breathing evened out, and his eyes, adjusted to the dark, fell on the book that he had fallen asleep reading. Hardly a first edition, but still leather-bound and expensive; it had been difficult even getting his hands on a copy this decent in the future he still remembered.

He dusted off the covers, smoothed down the pages, and placed it, this time more carefully, beside him.

Act three. Even changed and altered as it had been by the sensationalist broadway performances in Midgar that had focused on the romance rather than the true mysteries of the gift of the Goddess, it was an aspect that he had connected with far more on a personal level since understanding where his life had gone wrong than he ever had before.

 _I never promised them anything,_ he thought to himself, lying on his back and staring at the roof of the tent, hearing snoring from some short distance away.  _Neither now, nor then. Perhaps that made it easier. After all, you can't break that which was never made to begin_ _with._

_Tifa would say that you cannot simply change the past by wasting your time wondering over what could have been, but that doesn't account for when you truly are stuck in the past... unlike all of the idle thinking and what ifs in the world, I can actually change things._

_No,_  he thinks, turning over onto one side and drawing the light blanket back over his body, his hand pausing at his chest... at his shoulder, still sensitive even though it was mostly healed, by now.  _I have to have changed at least something already. Otherwise... what is the point of it all?_


	12. Chapter 12

The most irritating thing about being put into a war you no longer had any interest in fighting for, Genesis had to say, was the fact that there was no longer any sense of _interest_ in it.

There was nothing holding him there, and when accosted by Wutaian soldiers it was sometimes hard to remember to take things  _seriously._

Especially when the  _last_ thing he wanted was to accidentally tell his entire contingent that he didn't even  _want_ these people dead. 

Well, no, strictly speaking that would be a lie; after long enough with what often felt like hardly an hour passing without yet another Wutai spy or soldier crawling out of the woodwork like ants or lice...

His patience was getting thin enough that if they hadn't been in the middle of a forested area, the next one who tried to attack them on the sly would have ended up with a face full of fireball. The last one had come close. It had only been the result of Genesis' own not inconsiderable ability to control the strength of his spells that had resulted in one shocked and singed Wutaian, and a few scorched but otherwise unharmed trees.

His unit was currently only approximately a mile away from Fort Tamblin, and he himself was perched up in a tree some distance from the perimeter of the town Shinra's forces had taken over a few months back, not even caring about what the reactions would be to the hole in his coat opening up again when it had been threatening to do so for some time now, and if his wing hadn't undone all of that hard work, then the sharp branches and bark of the tree he was in would have done the trick.

All in all, the peace and quiet away from inquisitive troops was something that he'd been in sore need of. The one thing that made things less than perfect had to be the sheer amount of things that seemed to think that just because he had feathers and wasn't currently feeling like moving, it  _clearly_ meant that he was free real estate to be crawled over and to be used as a hiding place.

Not for the first time, he flipped his PHS open, and thumbed his way into the spam folder of his messages. Knowing the sorts of people who could potentially hack into his phone if they decided that they wanted to, he had long since decided that it was hardly worth the bother of attempting anything too blatant of an attempt at keeping secrecy. 

The last mail from  _that_ particular number flashed up on the screen.

_You've been quiet._

The message was dated several days ago. 

If nothing else, they'd come to the decision that if the Turks were going to find out that Genesis was having discussions with someone that bordered on treason, then they'd  _also_ find out a few interesting home truths about the company they were paid to be lapdogs for.

As yet, no one had. Despite the part of him that was relieved for it, there was another part that was almost disappointed in them.

_I've been leading a squad into an active war zone. Which isn't entirely new territory for me, but it has been some time. 'Quiet' is the last word I'd use to describe it._

He hesitated for a moment, before sending. 

It wasn't wrong for him to say that it wasn't new territory - he  _had_ done this sort of thing before. Many times. He, along with Sephiroth, Angeal, and many others - some of whom had survived, while others had not - had led troops onto the field of war, living up to the name of SOLDIER. It was where their  _other_ titles had come from, those of  _General_ and  _Commander_. Ones that... well, perhaps they didn't hold the same official status as  _First Class,_ but anyone who'd been involved in the war at all came away knowing that while there were plenty of SOLDIERs of any rank, there was only one General, and there were only two Commanders. 

It was easy to forget when he was surrounded by Shinra propaganda again, how the idea that he had become known as the  _Crimson Commander_ because of his hair, his coat, and his sword was not strictly true-

His PHS chimed. Only a few minutes since he'd sent his reply, and there was a response already.

_Anything to be concerned over?_

In another timeline, several hundred or so people would be dead or as good as by now. Several of whom had been showing concern over  _him_ in the past few days.

_No._

It was the truth, after all.

_I have a plan._

There was movement underneath him, and it took all of his willpower to stay still, not twitch, and not shake the feathers of his wing to get rid of the itch that was starting to form. In the time it took Vincent to respond, he'd sent a quick mail to one of the Seconds to inform them that Wutaian forces had been spotted some distance from their camp.

_Your last plan resulted in you almost dying. I'm tempted to bring a fire extinguisher._

He rolled his eyes, and pointedly chose not to respond to that.

_You can't change anything if you're dead. Remember that._

...

_The first time he'd met her, she had thoroughly ignored him._

_Genesis had walked through the door of Seventh Heaven behind Cloud, Weiss a dead weight in his arms. A dark haired woman in black had sat behind the bar, talking animatedly to a younger woman with shorter dark hair, but they'd looked up at the intrusion._

_Cloud had explained, in short, who Genesis was, introduced Tifa, and what was going on. About Weiss._

_The one he had been told was Tifa had narrowed her eyes at him, but then put all of her focus on Cloud, asking him what was needed, and if they should be contacting Reeve - a name that had struck him as familiar, yet he hadn't thought at the time that it could possibly have been the executive he had once only seen in tedious meetings._

_The other one, however, he wouldn't find out much more about until later, and the most he was given at the time was her name, when Tifa had asked after her, apparently concerned about something._

_Yuffie, he had learned. And filed the information away for another time, deeming it unimportant, and he had summarily ignored her just as she had him._

_After all, he had other matters to attend to, higher priorities. Anything else was easy to brush aside, especially given how he had still been recovering from mana depletion and his fight with Cloud._

_He hadn't thought it odd, at the time._

_Later he would hear her name again, and wonder why it sounded vaguely familiar, but then get distracted with something else - something more pressing, something more important than someone who didn't seem to want anything to do with him._

_The pattern had continued. The girl seemed plenty animated enough with the others, but the moment he would walk into a room, she would trail off or pointedly ignore his presence entirely._

_Cloud would twitch for his sword every time he saw Genesis' wing unfurl from his back. Tifa would watch him closely, enough to make him wonder if he'd run into her at some point before to draw her ire, but she never said anything, and he preferred not to poke at sleeping guard dogs. Shelke, dressed in normal clothes and slowly acclimatising to life outside of Deepground herself, had rarely gone out of her way to interact with him, aside from the calculating looks she had sent and the one time she had told him, bluntly, that he wasn't quite so impressive as the files and_ _reports that she had managed to find on him had suggested._

_Compared to all of them, Yuffie's avoidance was nothing out of the ordinary, especially when she wasn't even always around._

_And then, the monster attacks had started._

_Even if he wanted to, Genesis could no longer remember what had started it, but someone had suggested that he and Yuffie should go together to investigate._

_Yuffie had refused._

_"Oh, this should be real interestin'," he'd heard Cid mutter darkly as everyone's attention had begun to focus in on the two involved._

_Cloud had shrugged, eyes narrowing in a familiar way._

_"Next to me, you're the one who knows the most about materia. And Genesis knows more than both of us." Ordinarily he would have preened at the compliment, even as matter of fact as it was, but something about the incident had been holding his attention. "We need to find out what's going on, and if it involves materia, then you're the ones best suited to figuring that out."_

_Despite the praise that had also been aimed her way, Yuffie had merely crossed her arms defiantly, expression stony._

_"You think I don't know how good he is with materia? I do, and I don't care! I'm not working with him, and you can't make me!"_

_Something had struck him about her wording, a sudden sense of urgency in the back of his mind telling him that there was something that he had needed to remember, but it had merely made him frown. Regardless of whatever issue she had with him, there were such things as priorities._

_"Yuffie-"_

_"Don't 'Yuffie' me! He might be acting nice, but he's nothing more than a monster!"_

_Old wounds ached, and Genesis' fist had clenched, leather creaking at the word. He had spent years believing that what she was saying was true. In many ways, it still was, with his inhuman wing garnering stares whenever it came out._

_But he had come face to face with the Goddess and come away rejected but alive, and he had made promises, to himself even if to no other, and held other words close, or tried to. That SOLDIER... didn't mean monster. It was something to live up to, at least._

_"Yuffie, that's enough."_

_Cloud's voice had snapped him back to reality, and he had breathed in with a hiss, his jaw clenched._

_"You want to know what they called him? Do you? They called him 'the Crimson Commander'. When he was destroying my home. They'd burn villages and crops and kill people and then they'd go back home and get called heroes." A part of him had wanted to refute that, say that it had only been Sephiroth who had been lauded as the hero, but he'd held back. And then, for the first time, she had turned to him, looked him in the eye in the midst of the silence. "You can't even try to deny it, can you?"_

_He couldn't. It wasn't as though she was wrong._

_"That was a long time ago," he said instead. "People change."_

_The one thing that he would never forget about the entire exchange, was how Yuffie's face - so often open while around other people, full of confidence and immaturity - twisted with anger and ugly hatred._

_"You," she had said, hands gripping her upper arms and voice barely holding in her emotions, "will never be a hero."_

...

The fact that he's cleaning blood from his sword with a dark frown as he walks back into camp might contribute to the way that he notices that the SOLDIERs and infantry alike give him a wide berth for a while. It makes his jaw tense, the way that some of them look at him, but he consoles himself with the fact that it's probably safer this way - safer that they're keeping a distance while he's in a foul mood and lost in old memories of places and people now lost to him.

One of the Wutai soldiers had waited around instead of going with the others.

Having been on his own, it shouldn't have been that big of a deal; he could have encouraged the man to leave, planting the idea that he had motives that were separate from Shinra's orders.

The world, however, was far from perfect. Genesis had only seen that there was anyone else still there  _after_  he had come down out of the tree he had been sitting in, his wing still on full display as he used it in order to float effortlessly down.

Dead men didn't speak - especially dead men who weren't called  _Sephiroth_. Not dead men who had no trace of Jenova, and no connection to any Ancients.

That was all the Wutai were, when it came down to it. 

Ordinary people, with no real power, and no connection to anything that would give them that power. They would be crushed under Shinra in any and every timeline because of this, because no matter how hard they fought, compared to SOLDIER they had no chance. None at all.

Blood stained the cloths he was using to clean Rapier crimson, and Genesis knew that it was going to take more than that to clean his sword.


	13. Chapter 13

All in all, the attention he received from the Wutaians - both soldiers and civilians alike, pausing in their duties as he was led to where he had... _requested_ to go, by nervous men - was not entirely unfamiliar.

He had more than enough experience with people seeing his uniform and making judgements on it, after all. Plenty, due to Shinra's own work, hadn't even known or even cared who he  _was_ , just that he still proudly wore the SOLDIER uniform, Shinra's brand stamped on his belt for all to see.

Some had known, had remembered who he was - were old enough to, had survived, most likely - and  _theirs_ were the faces that had prepared him most for this, than any of the others.

Wutai knew exactly who Genesis Rhapsodos was, knew what he had done. 

In a sense, he supposed that it was a cruel twist of fate worthy of poetry that what for him had merely been his job, what had been so easily forgotten and left to one side once he had found out about his own, more personal grievances... what had become almost nothing more than a footnote in his story, was exactly what these people were still living through.

They saw him as covered in the blood of their people - they had  _no idea_ what the future held in store. 

Curved swords crossed in front of him, bringing him to an abrupt halt in front of what was clearly a building of some importance.

"If you wish to speak with Lord Godot, you must leave all weapons here. Understand that you do not have your trust, and you have not earned our respect aside from your ability to kill."

Genesis rolled his eyes, shifting in an attempt to not show how much the idea of being parted from his sword for yet  _another_ time made him tense; and knowing these people, they didn't just mean his  _sword._

"I'm a SOLDIER, not an assassin," he said smoothly, still staring up at the sky. He could see the stars from here, even though Wutai was more brightly lit than some towns. "If I wanted anyone here dead, you'd know it by now."

He... wasn't helping his case. If anything, he could sense every last one of them steel their resolve against him with those words, true though they were - because if he had come here to ensure someone's death, then it was hardly as though he would be unjustified in slaughtering the lot of them, in Shinra's eyes. No one would see it as him doing anything other than his duty, his job. 

He would be  _commended_ \- and then, of course, the glory given to Sephiroth. As it almost always had been, when it had been  _important._  

"You came to our doors saying that you wished to discuss matters under a private truce. If you cannot do this much to prove your honour and the worth of your words, then you may leave by whichever route you came."

 _You're the one who came up with this plan,_ said a voice in his head that sounded far too much like Angeal for his liking,  _you really should have seen this coming._

Far too smug, and not at all helpful.

But... none of that was wrong, exactly. And he knew, about as well as he could, that his choices were few; the war would end one way or another, and if he did not end the war this way, then it  _would_ end in blood.

And if that happened...

He took first one breath, then another, and wondered why it felt so very much the same as when he was readying himself for a fight.

...

_He remembers waking up one night with his sword to someone's neck before he even understands that he is awake, before he can begin to even cast aspersions on who the intruder might be._

_It had taken a few more moments for his eyes to adjust to the low lighting, and when they do, he sees nothing more or less than the terrified shape and form of Yuffie, caught with her hand still halfway to his bracer._

_"And here I was," he'd said, "thinking that you had a little more sense than this." He'd left the sword there for a little longer, before - slowly - withdrawing it, careful not to let the metal touch skin, but ensuring she knew what was like, for his sword to have been so close. "We may be allies, but I would hardly hold myself responsible if I had sensed a true threat, and not simply an intruder."_

_"You're the threat!" Yuffie had hissed, clearly shaken by the obviously unexpected results of their encounter. "You shouldn't go swinging that thing around when you aren't even awake! What if you'd killed me - then what, huh?"_

_"Thankfully for you," he'd said dryly, "one of the materia you have your eye on there is a Restore. And no matter what you think of me, I do in fact have experience in healing mortal injuries. I simply would have returned you to Tifa or Cloud and explained how you had brought injury upon yourself."_

_Of course he had experience. As she so frequently liked to remind them all, he had been a commander in the war._

_A war that, no matter the casualty count on either side, had still seen him face down wounds in SOLDIERs that even mako couldn't heal quickly enough on its own, and infantry that would have died without an experienced caster._

_War had not all been glory and victory, despite their superiority; it had its fair share of nightmares to impart without any need for Jenova, or scientists, or anything outside of what mortal men could do to one another._

_His only wish had been to be recognised for what he had done, and achieved - not simply have his accomplishments shafted off as deemed unimportant, and if they were worthy of attention, then they were written up as under Sephiroth's name, instead of his own._

_"You could at least say sorry for scaring me like that! All I wanted was a better look at those materia you've got, and you threatened me!"_

_It had only been then that he had realised that he had still been holding Rapier in his hand, despite it having no longer been at the girl's throat, and the lessening rush of adrenaline collided with the frustration she was inducing, as well as the fact that he had, against his will, been woken in the middle of an otherwise perfectly rare good night's sleep._

_"Apologise for- you were the one who crept into my room while I was sleeping! So, no - I will not. Just count yourself lucky that I taught myself to respond reflexively with a sword and not magic, or you'd be walking away with a burnt face instead of damaged pride!"_

_He still remembered the way that she had scurried out._

_He had felt vaguely guilty, in daylight. Or perhaps that had been a feeling of trepidation that Cloud and the others would judge him afresh for having threatened one of theirs - which Yuffie, somehow, was._

_Yet he knew that he would do it again, and again if need be, because he would prefer to be even a hated monster that was alive than one that was killed in his sleep._

_..._

"We have met with your people before, and we have told them the same that we will tell you now. Wutai will have make no compromises with the Shinra, or their agents."

Genesis gritted his teeth, and reminded himself of how he'd known going into this that it would not be easy; he had heard Yuffie complain about her father, it had been infrequent in his earshot but it had happened, and each time, he had wondered how anyone could have taken  _that_ impression away, or how anyone could possibly  _believe_ it.

The Godo that he had known even as a green SOLDIER Third Class - that was this man in front of him now, who had refused Shinra for years, had gone to war with the only other power in existence, a tiny uprising that had lasted nine years.

Still, that knowledge only meant that he was more frustrated than not, knowing as he did how the man  _would not back down._  

"Perhaps so," he said, trying to keep his tone as even and respectful as he could and unsure of how well he was succeeding, "I did not, however, say that I came here on Shinra's behalf."

"And so you admit that you a traitor to your own."

He fought to hold back the fist that he wanted to make, his body tensing -  _traitor._ He had been that, once, but at the same time-

"I see no reason to tie my fate to the ones that would destroy us all, and drag everyone down with them," he said, attempting to keep the heat out of his voice, to hold down on the anger and resentment and just how much he  _wished_ that he could do more.

_My friend, do you fly away now, to a world that abhors you and I? Angeal, even right unto the end, you were far stronger than I in that regard. But no matter how strong, neither of us can live on this side indefinitely._

_That's why, if there's anything that can change things..._

"A sentiment that Wutai can sympathise with."

"Then you will listen to what I have to say?"

For a long moment, there was silence, and Genesis realised that in his impatience he had snapped. He cursed his own temper, but didn't think that he could have held it in any longer.

Eventually, Lord Godo sighed, and Genesis felt a prickle of  _something_ \- fear, perhaps, or anger at the fact the one time he was trying to do anything  _right_ , he wasn't being given the opportunity to even  _speak_ \- when the man shook his head.

"How can we trust a man who has no honour? Who serves no lord? Even should Wutai hear your words, we have no promise that they will not merely cause dissension."

_SOLDIER are monsters. We have neither dreams, nor honour._

_Pride is lost, wings stripped away, the end is nigh - such, is the fate of a monster._

_...will rot._

Genesis forced himself to breathe, leather creaking because of the fists that he had made on the tatami, jaw aching.

That - was all in the past, now. It had happened, and he had  _moved on._

But all the same-

"I am _trying_ to afford you an opportunity to not simply become Shirna's next lapdog that they parade around at parties," he all but snarled out, the memory of that having been  _him_ , unassuming and naive in his new new uniform, being one that he used to be so proud of, and now could only despise. "You think that you can continue like this - that you can win against them in the long term when a single inexperienced yet enthusiastic SOLDIER could storm your last forts with only a little difficulty at this point?" His eyes were burning holes into the floor, unwilling to run the risk of his expression being openly visible. "You think yourselves safe-"

_The world fell away._

_Weightlessness, and a bone-deep feeling that he knew the moment it came upon him, his mind unable to reject what memory and muscle knew to be the truth._

_The shape of the land told him where he was, as much as the view of a crater-less Midgar somewhere in the distance, yet it was changed, altered._

_Genesis breathed in sharply, only to feel the need to cough, and each intake of air only made things worse - Midgar wasn't the only area covered in the green smog that had once only existed due to such a density of mako reactors; now, the colour filled the sky, dark green covering the Planet in clouds that clotted out the sun._

_"You think yourself safe," came his own voice from moments ago, but it felt mocking in the light of what his eyes were taking in._

_Degradation was the only thing that even came close to the sensation, the knowledge flowing through him of poisoned water like toxins in his blood, the land withering away much like his own strength once had, trees falling one by one like hair fading and falling in the wind._

_Soon, it all said - soon, there would be nothing left._

_No life left to give._

_No life left to return._

_No life-_

The clean air of Wutai again burned his lungs, brought tears to his eyes. It takes precious moments to remember where he is -  _when_ he is - and yet more to remember what he had been  _saying._

"....none of us are safe," he said, voice somehow still carrying despite being little more than a whisper and still thick with the memory of Planet's poison in his lungs and the horror he had  _seen_. Something telling him that he hasn't been doing enough, that even should Sephiroth never call down Meteor, the Planet was still  _dying._ His stomach feels unsettled, a faint suggestion in the back of his mind saying that he would very much like to find somewhere private and throw up later, but right now he needs to focus. "And you are wrong when you say that I serve no one," he added, some warmth coming back to his words along with a smile at the thought. "I serve neither Shinra nor Wutai, but someone higher than either of you."

It's only now that he looks up that he realises that the two guards who had been on either side of Godo were now in front of the man, weapons drawn to create a further divide. 

He can't help but wonder what they had just seen, if whatever it was had caused them to see him as a  _threat._ Can't help but remember what he wished he hadn't felt during the momentary vision of what could yet come to be.

"Who, then? There are those who would say that they fight for the sake of the Planet, yet are just as destructive as those they seek to oppose in their own ways."

Genesis dips his head, remembering a meeting in the Lifestream, words spoken at a campfire, a sense of a challenge being issued, and even just now, a feeling that he  _wasn't alone._

"There is no hate," he said, the words resonating in him with a determination he had not felt in years, "only joy... for you are beloved of the Goddess."

...

_"How... long... is... he... going... to... take...?"_

"Are you talking about Angeal, or Genesis?" came an amused - and familiar voice.

Zack paused in his squats - then gave up, standing properly and stretching his muscles.

" _Either_ of them! Angeal's been sticking me on training missions when I could be out there doing something by now. And  _Genesis_ should've been back by now! It's been - how long's it been?"

Kunsel goes to sit down, but Zack - Zack can't. He's stopped exercising, but that doesn't mean he's lost any of that restless energy Angeal's always trying to get him to hone into some sort of focus. It's not  _his_ fault he works better with a simple goal and nothing too complicated. 

Just point him at the target and let him loose, and he's more than good enough,  _really._

"Yeah, about that... you're probably being kept back because of the number of SOLDIER operatives still off-base since Genesis left. So, you can blame it on him, if you want."

" _Ugh._ " Zack rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. "I mean, of course. That makes total sense.  _Reach your full potential, Zack,"_ he said, in a vague approximation of Genesis' voice. " _Show me the true power of SOLDIER, Zack_. And then he swans off to Wutai and makes sure my training gets ground to a halt."

He almost -  _almost -_ doesn't catch that odd look of Kunsel's. It's not like the guy's taken that helmet of his off. But there's just something that makes him frown. Kunsel  _always_ knew everything, or pretty much everything. But that wasn't always a  _good_ thing.

"About that... I thought you should know. I heard something earlier that suggests the higher-ups aren't too happy about Genesis taking this long either."

On the one hand, well,  _sure_ , but on the other?

"Uh... huh?"

"He's one of the top Firsts, you know? Even if nothing else, it's bad for the image of the company if someone like  _him_ takes so long on what should be a simple take down mission." Kunsel shrugged. Looked away. "Eh, it's probably nothing, you know? Nothing to worry yourself over."

 _Why bring it up at all, then?_ was what Zack wanted to say, because  _seriously_ man, you don't just  _say_ things like that. But right when he was about to Kunsel stood, coming to attention as a First appeared, and although he  _wanted_ to be happy that he was going to be getting a mission outside of Midgar for once-

He couldn't keep himself from wondering what the hell was going on, if it had  _Angeal_ looking  _worried_  like that.


	14. Chapter 14

In all honesty, Genesis realises that it's only  _starting_ to sink in just  _how_ out of practice he'd become when it came to dealing with someone about something delicate, in the capacity of a negotiator. In the past decade at  _least_ he hadn't had any need to use such skills; there was always something that needed to be fought directly, either by means of war or a more general attack on the Planet or himself specifically. When it came to people he hadn't wanted to alienate, he had found ways to ingratiate himself to them, one way or another - sometimes, the decision had even been taken out of his hands entirely.

The fact that these  _negotiations_ were technically deemed unofficial until both he and any of the Wutaian officials were happy with the terms they were attempting to agree on were taking so long was driving him to  _frustration._

He knew that he wasn't a patient man. His temper was one of the things that had caused him no end of problems even well before his experiences with degradation had made both it and the consequences that much worse, so being forced to deal with people who picked over every detail he offered-

One vision had been all that was necessary in order to keep him from squandering the opportunity given to him and storming out on multiple occasions, the mere memory enough to make him stop in his tracks and regain his focus.

But this had been going on now for - how long?

Ah, yes.

 _Two weeks._  

Two weeks, and it felt as though he had made no more progress than he had at the end of the very first day, which was likely an over exaggeration and underestimating his achievements, but even so.

Wutai was nowhere near the most important thing he had in mind regarding the changes he planned no making to this timeline he had been placed in. There were far  _more_ important places that he wanted to be. 

People he would like nothing more than to... keep an eye on, even if nothing else.

And like that, his mind had tuned itself back to thinking of Sephiroth and Angeal as easily as ever. But mostly Angeal. 

 _Last time,_ he thought dourly to himself as he stalked back to the area far enough away from the city that he had both cover and isolation,  _I was the one who followed him to Wutai, after I had deserted. Last time... this would be around when I told him the truth of my - our - situation._

_I ensured his confusion... as well as his broken loyalties. I wonder... if perhaps even then..._

_"My friend, the fates are cruel,"_  he murmured to the trees, the words swallowed by the silence and the distant birdsong. _"There are no dreams, no honour remains. The arrow has left the bow of the Goddess."_

Angeal had died much like his mother. And Genesis had, ultimately, been responsible for both.

 _We are monsters_ , he remembered saying. To Angeal. Later, to Zack. Because stripped down to their bare essentials, there truly  _was_ no difference between SOLDIER, even the rank and file Seconds and Thirds, and the mako-affected monsters that roamed the Planet.

He had thought for a time that perhaps he could be rid of that, if his degradation were ceased, but even once he had been given a renewed lease on life that notion had been disabused of him almost immediately by Deepground. Even if nothing else, he had quickly learned that despite his healing, he had retained the mutation Jenova's cells had wrought upon him in the first place.

A wing, however, did have its uses.

Summoning it hardly even required thought or even a moment's concentration, and then it was there in a rush of displaced air, wind, and feathers.

And in amongst the sounds that he had become so used to... a very human  _gasp._ More than that, a very  _young_ sounding human gasp.

The moment he recognised it for what it was and realised that he had company, it wasn't all that difficult to follow the sound and single out the source. What  _did_ take a little longer was the jump from recognising that whoever it was had to be a Wutaian child - female, older than Marlene when he had last seen her but younger than Denzel - and the realisation that she was...  _familiar._

"I- I  _knew_ we shouldn't be trusting you! I told them, and I was right, you're just - just-"

Short black hair, a round face, and dressed in green. Although a simpler, more traditional look than he was used to, it wasn't hard to guess.

"Yuffie," he said, cutting her off with the narrowed eyes of someone who knew exactly how much trouble she could cause.

Yet, at the same time, the tension that had appeared at the realisation that he had company dissipated; even as influential a father as she had, even as  _annoying_ as she was, Yuffie was after all just a  _child,_ and therefore no threat he couldn't handle.

Yuffie, entitled brat that she was, stamped her foot, even though he could  _clearly see_ that she was afraid - and alone with a mutated SOLDIER First Class she had no reason to trust, she  _should_ be.

"How do you even- that might not even be my name!"

Genesis rolled his eyes, and debated whether to simply leave her there in the middle of the forest for monsters to find, or deliver her back to where she must have come from unconscious. The former had the attractive quality of knowing that she likely wouldn't bother him ever again; the latter, however, had the potential to get the negotiations moving faster, since he would have proven his honour to them, and honour meant almost as much to these people as it did to  _Angeal._

"Hey, don't you go ignoring me like that!"

"Or you'll do... what, exactly? Run home and tell your father that you thought you saw a winged man in the forest? He'd think you saw a monster, not the person who's been helping him plan for eventualities-"

"Then I'll _tell_ him I saw a  _monster!"_

Genesis' face contorted into a grimace of anger, wing snapping out as he advanced on the girl.

He didn't have the  _patience_ for this.

"Do you truly want your country to die  _that badly?_ To watch it wither away without any hope of resurrection? You may hate me, but I alone have the power to ensure that this does not happen, and you  _won't_ get in my way, you ungrateful little brat. Go on, tell your father that I am a monster that Shinra created, and watch as they send Sephiroth in my place, and he won't have so much  _mercy."_

Yuffie's eyes widened, and for the first time she backed away, fear guiding her feet rather than that false bravado he knew so well.

"W... what  _are_ you...?"

He stopped. Looked away. Forced his muscles to relax, one by one, shaking his wing out into something less battle-ready.

 _What do you think you're doing?_ _She's just a child - she's just a kid and you're just being a bully,_ he heard, and this time it wasn't Angeal, or Cloud, but... Tifa. Tifa, with cold anger in her eyes, the same anger that had reminded him that someone at least hadn't completely forgotten his part in Nibelheim, even if all she'd seen was a red and black blur hitting her on his way out of the reactor.

"A monster..." he said at last, a half answer of sorts to a question that perhaps he shouldn't have been answering. "But a monster that the Planet has chosen to serve it. In this... Wutai has nothing to fear. From... me, at least," he added, knowing that his warnings and threats from before were in no way meaningless. 

His phone beeped. 

They both started at the noise, Yuffie in a far less subtle manner.

Genesis narrowed his eyes, wing curling around him protectively, defensively, without even intending it to. 

"Now, be a good girl and run back home."

Yuffie took first one step back, then another, and upon the realisation that he wouldn't be following after her, turned and fled, as far from a soundless ninja as a nine year old girl could get. It didn't matter, though - with any luck, she'd be found by her own people well before one of Shinra's scouts heard the noise.

...

_"You two... really don't get along, do you?"_

_Cloud hadn't been there, this time, as Genesis had been leaning back into one of the seats in Seventh Heaven and going back over his new, hardcover copy of LOVELESS, fingers tapping mindlessly on the spine of the book as he'd gone over the events of the past few weeks in his head._

_"Ripples form on the water's surface. The wondering soul knows no rest," he'd read aloud, the familiar shape of the words a balm in the face of uncomfortable topics._

_"You and your poetry - it's nearly as bad as Cloud not saying anything at all! At least with Cloud, you know he doesn't think he's tried saying anything useful."_

_"It's drama, not poetry, Tifa," he'd drawled out, only mildly irritated at the offence. "And would you want to have family dinners with the Turks? Or how about Rufus Shinra himself?"_

_Tifa had huffed._

_"That's not the same and you know it."_

_"How? You know who I am. You know what I've done. Perhaps some of you can overcome that." He'd known even then that expecting it of all of them would be too much to ask. Even the trust that they did give, had been more than he had expected, or even hoped for. "For Yuffie, however... I am Shinra more than even Rufus Shinra himself, and I am everything that has created all of her nightmares."_

_Much like it seemed that Sephiroth had become for Cloud._

_"You're really full of yourself, you know that?" he'd heard something coming at him, and his hand had reached up to catch it before he had even realised what it was; a single glance had told him that it was Tifa's dirty wash cloth that she'd been cleaning the tables with, and he'd scowled, mostly at the idea that the damp cloth could have touched his book. "You know, the least you could do is apologise for all that. But all you ever do is antagonise her further."_

_"Please," he'd said, putting the book down as far away from the wet, dirty cloth as he could, and promising swift vengeance if Tifa decided to throw any more sodden rags at him. "I'm fairly sure I remember her being the one to antagonise me more often than not."_

_He'd looked up, and the smile that had been playing about on his lips had faded with the view of Tifa with her hands on her hips, clearly unimpressed._

_"Just look at you! Acting as though nothing you do matters, and you're just stuck with the role you've been given. Nothing's ever going to move forward if you don't start putting any effort in. At some point you've got to start growing up and acting like the adult you are, instead of keeping up the moody teenager act forever."_

_He had remembered the realisation of how he hadn't been anything other than the Prisoner for so long, his eyes blinded to the truth._

_Had shaken his head, arms crossing over his chest, hands gripping his arms enough to cause the leather of his gloves and coat to creak._

_"I am... no hero, Tifa." There. It hurt to admit, like biting down on nails, or talking around the burn of cracked skin reaching his throat in the grips of degradation, but there it was. The truth. "I haven't been for quite some time."_

_If anyone deserved the title, it was Zack. Perhaps Cloud, as he had been coming to understand. But him... no. He had forfeited the role._

_"Dilly dally, shilly shally." He'd heard the words used on Cloud, on Marlene and Denzel when they were lagging behind on their work. Now, though, he had blinked, not understanding. "Every so often I wonder why you two get on at all, and then you say something like this, and I think I get it. You really think that, don't you? When was the last time you let yourself be who you wanted to be... not just what you think you're supposed to be, huh?"_

_..._

Genesis closed his phone with a snap that reverberated in the near-silence of the surrounding forest, the words of the faintly glowing screen having burned their way into his mind regardless.

The sender was one of the Second Class SOLDIERs he'd ordered to let him know if anything happened back at base while he was away on one of his more secretive missions, the name not one that he recognised - as if _that_ even meant anything.

_Shinra's sent a backup unit. Seems the mission's taking longer than expected._

He touched down and dismissed his wing without thinking, taking the route that he had begun to memorise over the past couple of weeks, going through the motions without taking any notice of what he was actually doing.

Somewhere around here - one of these clearings, one of these paths - was the place where he had separated Angeal away from everyone else, away from Zack, and Sephiroth, and told him a cruel version of the truth.

Even without  _trying_ , his mind conjured up the sight of Angeal's face, when he'd told him just what Hollander had told him - that they weren't merely SOLDIER, but monsters, abominations that could overwrite minds and wills - experiments thrown away, just like that, because they weren't even  _good enough._

The shock, the conflict, the  _betrayal._

Up until now, he had seen to it that things could not possibly go in the same direction as they once had; yet had it not been his own desertion, regardless the cause, which had been the catalyst for so many things?

If his actions had done nothing but ensure that history set itself on the proper course once again, if that were the case-

The cost of living on Shinra's side was a steep one, paid in blood and lies every single day he chose not to simply fly away to freedom. 

Yet when it came to contemplating the cost of rejecting the facade and all of the power and convenience... all of the influence and all of the  _people_... he wasn't yet ready, couldn't' face the idea that he would have to be  _forced_ into being ready, if there was  _anything he could do-_

His feet had taken him to the path close to Fort Tamblin, some half a mile away from any of the sentries or patrols he'd put up in the area.

"Well, I can't really say I expected to find you here of all places. But then, you have been acting odd lately, Genesis."

All of the air deserted him in the time it took for him to recognise who was speaking, and considering how well they knew each other, that wasn't very long at all. 

He found himself turning around despite knowing, perhaps because some part of his mind had some desperate hope that, even faced with the clear truth, he would see someone else, speaking with that voice, but he  _knew._

He knew.

Angeal was still looking at him, one brow raised as if to ask what the hell kind of trouble he'd gotten himself into this time, arms crossed, and he almost - almost, but not quite - missed Zack standing a few paces behind, looking between them in confusion.


	15. Chapter 15

The helicopter ride to Wutai had been far from stress-free. Partly because of how travelling with Zack was always similar to trying to keep an excitable puppy focused and under control in a small space, yes, but also due to the very nature of their mission.

Genesis had been acting... strangely, for the past couple of months, now. That much was hardly a surprise to anyone with eyes. Anyone who'd been paying attention, at least. Certainly he, Sephiroth, and even Zack had noticed.

Angeal _had_ hoped that despite what Zack had said some time ago now, Genesis would be able to keep his head and not let whatever was going on affect his missions or his command, so Shinra should have no reason to get on his case.

But that... clearly wasn't the case. Or, the higher-ups thought there was either something wrong enough with Genesis that he needed backup, or - something else going on entirely.

The idea that Shinra had somehow begun to  _distrust_ Genesis had been brought up by Lazard himself, unsettlingly enough. The only consolation he had, slight though it was, was Lazard's disagreement with the idea that Genesis would prove to be a danger to the company. Even if he  _had_  outright said that he still felt uneasy enough about the extended absence that he didn't have any objections to the mission.

So, it had come to this.

Genesis wasn't at the base camp that they'd been directed to, which shouldn't have worried him - and yet, when asked what Genesis was  _doing_ , neither of them had been able to get a straight answer from any of the SOLDIERs or regulars stationed there. Just that he was 'off again'... or whatever that meant. Although by the way that looks had been shared, it seemed as though it was a regular thing, these disappearances.

All in all, the entire situation was starting to remind him in a vaguely unsettling way of when they were kids growing up in Banora, and how despite knowing him better than anyone else, it had still taken him some time before he was let in on where Genesis had vanished off to every so often.

Genesis would vanish for hours on end then, too - sometimes, the most worrying times, when he'd had an argument with his parents, for days. And inevitably Angeal would go off to try and find him and bring him back.

Sometimes, someone would come up and ask him to, even. Just like Lazard had.

This, though - this wasn't Banora, this was  _Wutai_ , and it wasn't like there was somewhere like the underground network of caves that Genesis had found here, or someone would have reported it back to Shinra. 

 _Something_ was clearly going on. And when Zack had almost accepted the offer of just putting up a couple of cots for the night and waiting until Genesis inevitably - according to everyone in the camp, at least, which he supposed he should find reassuring - came back, Angeal had declined, with a firm shake of the head.

No, he'd said, they were going to go out and look  _now._

In retrospect he felt a little guilty over the hurt look on Zack's face, and the worried looks on the SOLDIERs nearby, but even if Zack didn't know the terrain, he did. And above that, he knew  _Genesis._

 _Or_...

"Well, I can't really say I expected to find you here of all places." They were halfway to Fort Tamblin. The last time he'd been out here, Wutai troops hadn't been far, and by all rights even with the way the war was going they shouldn't have been that scarce even now. "But then, you have been acting odd lately, Genesis."

... _maybe I really don't know him as well as I thought,_ he couldn't help but feel as Genesis seemed to turn around in slow motion, hand resting on his sword in a lazy gesture that he never used if he was truly at ease.

"Angeal. I had hardly expected to see you here either." There was a flat quality to Genesis' voice that felt - out of place. "I suppose they sent you after me, did they?"

"It isn't as though you've been telling anyone where you've been or what you've been doing for the past few weeks _on company time._ They were going to send someone, Lazard just thought that there was a higher chance that you'd actually listen to me."

He didn't like the way that Genesis' eyes narrowed at that. Surely he  _knew_ what Shinra felt about people going off and doing their own thing? If it weren't for the fact that the other SOLDIER Seconds and Thirds were still reporting back to Lazard at times and the army troops were reporting in with their superiors, this could have been worse - a _lot_ worse.

 _"When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end, the Goddess descends from the sky,"_ Genesis recited. As always, the words seemed to hold some greater weight for him than for anyone else who heard them. Some meaning Angeal had no hope of figuring out.  _"Wings of light and dark spread afar..._ we are at war. I was sent to end the fighting. Shinra has... no reason to feel that I need to be  _dealt_ with. Least of all by you."

Genesis looked away, not having been able to look him in the eye before but now he was staring into some middle distance. As if he were seeing some scene from that play acted out in front of him.

 _I was sent to end the fighting._ The words themselves weren't all that special, but... he was reminded of a younger, more self-confident Genesis talking away at him after having seen one of his first live productions.

 _You see,_ his friend had said,  _the truly great scripts always have such hidden depths. Not even a single line is without meaning, and many refer to things that aren't even covered in this adaptation of the stage play, because it hasn't the time to spare on each small detail._

If he'd had more time, he would have asked about that in more detail, but he didn't, and Zack was-

"Wait, this doesn't- you can't mean... they were starting to think Genesis had  _defected_ or something. Right? Because that's ridiculous, you'd never do something like that, would you?"

-not standing by and just watching as this unfolded. 

Angeal didn't know what to say to that, though. Because whether any of them liked it or not, that  _was_ what Shinra was insinuating. 

If Genesis didn't return with proof that he'd been doing  _something_ \- and that said something wasn't  _handing over company secrets to enemies of Shinra_ \- then he  _would_ be labelled under suspicion of collusion with the enemy.

Genesis' own hesitation, however, was far more telling than his own.

"I..." Zack looked up, but the shock was already starting to settle in. "I am not about to  _defect_ ," Genesis said at last. It was... odder than it ought to be, seeing him stumble over his words like that. Something that made the entire situation even more surreal. "Or desert. What, exactly, do you think that I might even have to gain from that?"

The distressing thing was the sheer  _pragmatism_ behind that. The idea that Genesis had  _weighed his options_ , had thought things through, come to a  _decision_ that it was the best course of action, as though whether to stay within Shinra, with SOLDIER, which had been his  _dream_ for so long, was only-

"I'd have hoped there was more keeping you in Midgar than that," he said bitterly. "Where's your  _honour_ , Genesis? I thought I knew you - I thought we were friends, but then you start keeping things like this from me. This isn't just something you can go back on later, or had you even thought about how it's already having an impact?!"

"Wait, what...? Angeal, what are you saying?"

He closed his eyes, letting out his frustration and confusion in a long breath. Buster Sword stayed deliberately where it was, which was a shame, because the weight of the sword would have been welcome. Something to focus on, too.

"Zack." Angeal's eyes opened sharply at the sound of Genesis addressing the boy. Zack was  _his_ protégé, no matter how much he'd had learned from Genesis about materia. If Genesis was going to attempt to say something to influence him one way or another- "You remember the way back to camp, don't you?"

"Huh? Yeah, of course I do."

"Then go. Angeal and I have... things to discuss."

"Wha- hey, that's not - you can't just-"

"Until I'm informed otherwise," Genesis continued, something in the flat tone that his voice had taken making Angeal  _worried_ , "I am still the commanding officer in this area. Which means that I am  _well within my rights_ to 'just' order you back to camp. SOLDIER Second Class, Zack."

Genesis' eyes flickered over at him. The fact that just mere moments ago they'd been arguing over whether Genesis was doing things that'd get him branded a traitor to Shinra, and now he was still asking Angeal's permission for sending Zack away - was more than a little surreal.

But-

"Genesis is right, Zack. He is still in charge, and this might go better if it's a private conversation. Right, Genesis?"

He didn't miss the way that his old friend tensed even as he gave a terse nod, and had to wonder when it was that they'd grown so far apart that the idea of talking things out could cause that kind of reaction _._

He also didn't miss the hurt look in Zack's eyes as he turned away from them both.

...

_"Just what the hell are you doing, Genesis? Do you have any idea what they're going to do to you when you get back-"_

_"Do to me?" He laughs, a hand covering his face, covering his eyes. And then it is gone, and Angeal can see exactly how serious he is. "I fail to see what Shinra could do to me that they have not already done." In the distance, he hears something. They haven't much time, even with Zack... distracted, as he is. "Or should I say, to us."_

...

"Well? You might as well explain yourself."

Genesis had been staring off into the middle distance in the same direction that Zack had headed off in, back to the camp, but at the same time, in a sense it almost didn't feel as though he was even present at all.

"What is there to explain, really?"

And then the focus was back, with Genesis' attention darting from place to place, until he moved from the spot he'd been in for the first time since Angeal had spoken up upon finding him like a coiled spring, full of pent up energy.

"How about everything? I meant what I said before. This mission should have been over and done with by now - Shinra's suspicious that you're up to something  _else_. I don't want to believe it myself, but you're going to have to give them something good if you don't want a full investigation when we get back. You're lucky it hasn't already-" his eyes caught onto something, pulling his attention away from the bigger picture. "Your coat's torn again."

Genesis froze in place, blinked in that way that told Angeal he was remembering something obvious, and swore.

The strangest thing was that just like last time, the rip was more or less clean; there was no blood, still stuck to the leather. Which meant that unless his opponent had been highly skilled, or Genesis had only just dodged the blow... but no, that didn't make sense either. The only ones who could possibly be on Genesis' level enough to do that would be the other Firsts, and he knew for a fact that neither he nor Sephiroth had been anywhere near him either time.

"I am  _trying_ ," Genesis said suddenly, "to be the kind of hero who- can _end_ this with as few people dead as I can get away with."

"It wasn't all that long ago that you had a different idea of what it meant to be a hero."

He could still remember Genesis pushing a fireball in his face when he'd tried to remind him that they were, despite appearances,  _still in the Shinra Building_ , and if their training session had gone on much further then it wouldn't have just been the incredibly expensive equipment that was totalled, but the structural integrity of the place, as well as anyone unfortunate enough to get caught up the potential fallout.

 _All I want is to be a hero_ , was what had been said back then.

It was easy to forget how just moments after that, Genesis had seemed to lose consciousness midair, had fallen for a few terrifying seconds, and then-

"I've been through a great deal since I last thought that all it meant to be a hero were grand deeds and adoration, Angeal." The sheer amount of tired _bitterness_  took him aback. "You were right," Genesis continues, a worrying curl to his mouth. "I was reckless and naive. A dangerous mix, all things considered... all I'm doing now is a hopefully not futile attempt to rectify our mistakes before they're completely beyond redemption."

"Wait,  _our_ mistakes?"

"Did you know that Shinra never told us the truth about why the war with Wutai started in the first place?"

"We were told-"

" _They lied to us._ " The forest seemed to go silent in the wake of Genesis' treasonous statement. It took several beats of Angeal's heart for him to remember to breathe again. "Eight years this war has been going on, and it took me  _two days_ for them to tell me what should have been obvious - that the President's only goal had ever been for there to be one outcome."

Denial that this was the true face of the company he served clashed with the now undeniable fact that Genesis had been meeting with influential Wutaians, the resulting confusion so loud in his mind that he barely noticed the return of the unnaturally shell-shocked look that had caught his friend's eyes for just a moment, before he'd turned away again.

"So you find out something you don't like the sound of, and you turn your back on everyone? Is that it?"

For a moment, he thought that Genesis hadn't heard him. Or perhaps he had, and was unable to look him in the eye. The red leather, still singed in places from gods alone knew what - he'd said it was a dragon, but Genesis was  _better_ than that - flapped in the slight breeze. The tear in the back, right by Genesis' left shoulder, was clearly visible. The wind picked up, and it had to be a trick of the light, because it looked nothing more than that it wasn't just the coat that was torn, but the shirt underneath, as well.

"You... you have  _no idea what you're talking about."_

The vehemence of the words took Angeal aback. 

"Then maybe you could  _tell_ me, instead of letting me and everyone else assume you've turned traitor! Because until you come out and  _say_ something, how are we supposed to know what's going on in your head? _Do_   _you_ have any idea how worried sick we've been over you these past few months? You've even got  _Zack_ worried."

For a few moments more, it seemed as though the tension was simply going to carry on building until Genesis did something characteristically reckless.

But instead, all that happened was that all of the anger and energy seemed to drain out of him, leaving Angeal to watch as he backed only a couple of steps away to the base of a tree, and sank down until he was sat, leaning with his back against the trunk, eyes now angled down at the dirt between them.

"As if it would take that much to worry Zack - give him an inch, and he'll extend sympathy and a helping hand to even his worst enemy," Genesis said with a sigh. "Settle down, Angeal. I've disappointed more than enough people. I can't make matters that much worse than they already were."

...

_"Shinra helped make us who we are!"_

_"You have no idea how true that is, Angeal. Because they did - from before we were old enough to know what Shinra was - they made us, formed us... created us. Shinra is everything that is wrong with this world. And they don't care that what they are doing, has only ever bred monsters and destruction."_

_..._

The roughness of the tree against his back was far from the cool breeze that he had felt before, with his younger self not having a gaping hole in the back of his coat yet with which to allow not only his wing to manifest through, but also for bark to catch on the flaps of leather and scratch at the bare skin underneath.

He leaned forward, resting his arms on one knee, and then blinked at the way that his hair fell in front of his face, the way it touched his shoulders, and had a brief moment of wondering whether he should have it cut, or grow it out again.

Even just thinking about it in theory, neither seemed to suit him. He wasn't who he had been. He wasn't even who he had been a few  _months_ ago. 

He glanced back up, to see Angeal still standing there, waiting for his answers, and Genesis sighed, again. This was a different exhaustion to the one that he had lived with for so many years - where that had been purely physical, with his mind and emotions burning hot with energy that his body hadn't been able to keep up with, he now had energy to spare on the physical side of things, but on the other... 

 _I was right, back then. I can no more live on this side like this than Angeal could. Sooner or later, whether the_ _goddess wills it or not... I'm going to burn out._

But until then, he would do what he could. He would do what he  _had_ to do. 

"For two weeks," he said clearly into the silence, "I've been working as an  _independent party_ alongside Wutai's highest echelons of power, in order to figure out if there could be a way for there to be peace. Without sacrificing anyone's pride, or honour. Which is incredibly hard to do when they see no reason to trust anyone even _vaguely_ associated with Shinra."

And since he was more than just  _vaguely_ associated, well... he had no doubt that his status as one of the highest-ranking SOLDIERs was certainly one of the things holding back their progress.

"You do realise that working with Wutai, even if it  _is_ just to stop the fighting at this point, is pretty much the definition of treason, don't you?"

He waved a hand through the air.

"It isn't treason if I'm not doing anything to endanger Shinra, is it?" 

Actual treason would come later, as a necessity. There were, after all, certain people who needed to die as soon as he was free in order to do so without great inconvenience to himself, or others, to begin with.

"For some reason, the way you're saying that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence."

"And there you have the very reason why I  _haven't_ brought this up before."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were treating this as a game. I'd  _like_ to think I know you well enough to say you aren't." Genesis leant his head back against tree with a bone-deep exhaustion that was far too familiar. "This isn't anywhere near the scale of hiding things from our parents anymore, Genesis. It's not even going to get the slap on the wrist we got for playing truant as Thirds and Seconds. We can't just- you don't seem to understand that if Shinra decides you've gone rogue, they'll-"

"Do what?" Genesis found himself saying bitterly. "Kill me?" Perhaps there was a certain amount of morbid humour in the fact that it wouldn't even be the first time - or, from a certain point of view, the second. He wondered if there was a different set of paperwork for if someone was actually killed in action, to if Shinra simply wanted them seen as such.

_Maybe I am treating this with less gravity than its due. But then, they can't do anything to me that they haven't already done, so that takes away some of the threat._

He expected some sort of retort, for putting it like that. 

Angeal sighing and putting up that sword of his to sit down wasn't what he'd thought would happen. Though perhaps the distance didn't just go one way; with all the changes he'd gone through over the years, with everything he had  _already_ changed in this new timeline, how could he be so sure he knew Angeal well enough to predict how he would react, any longer?

The answer, in a sense, was right in front of his eyes.

"Just... what  _happened_ to you?" Angeal ran a hand across his eyes. "You've never given any sort of explanation as to why you've changed so much, these past few months. And you  _have_. I've known you all my life, Genesis, and I can't think of anything that could cause...  _this."_

"My soul," Genesis recited, closing his eyes even in the darkness of the woods, "corrupted by vengeance... hath endured torment, to find the end of the journey in my own salvation."

_And your eternal slumber. My friend, I wronged you so._

"LOVELESS, huh? I don't suppose I'll get an actual answer, then."

He opened his mouth, but the words vanished as soon as gathered the breath to speak. 

"...Genesis?"

_I can't. If I do-_

Everything had gone wrong once already, because of the words  _he_ had chosen, because he had been so full of hatred and anger and fear and pain and the worst thing was, he was afraid now that no matter how he said it, any of it, it would all come out the same.

It wasn't as though the extra years had made him any  _less_ angry. Or made him hate Shinra any  _less_. 

Being back here, if anything, brought all of those feelings back to the fore again, and even though he didn't have to be afraid of dying from his body tearing itself apart slowly bit by bit, there was still the  _entire science department of Shinra waiting for him the moment he got back to Midgar-_

He'd never had this problem back with Cloud and the others. With them, they had all more or less known some part of his story, they had  _known_ everything that he had caused to be, and more than him, at that.

He couldn't disappoint them, because they already had low expectations; if anything, he had come into their group as a stranger, a known threat.

Angeal was none of that. 

"I didn't think you were going to take me up on that." And there he was, trying to lighten the mood with a joke, but Genesis could  _hear_ the undertone of worry. Concern. "I wish I didn't have to press you, but we can't wait another few months for you to feel comfortable with sharing whatever's on your mind."

In another few months... the war was supposed to have ended by then. Cloud might already be in Midgar. AVALANCHE making their move.

But if he never defected, then what weight did any of those events known from experience have? How did he know what was set in stone, and what wasn't? 

That was,  _if_   _he never left Shinra._ If history did not force him to play his part, writing him into his place even against his will.

Which... he would  _have_ to do, if he didn't get a grip on himself.

 _I can't make things that much worse than they already were,_ he repeated to himself.  _But all I want is to be able to look them - him - in the eye and not feel-_

_As though I'm the worst sort of liar there is, as well as the monster I called myself all those years ago._

_Goddess,_ _don't let me lose him again._

(He could still remember the expression of disappointment in her eyes as she turned him away, a rebuke against every single time he had turned his face away from the doubts that had crossed his mind, each one a chance he could have taken to  _turn back._ That he had not taken.)

He brought a hand up, arm covering his eyes, the stretch of cotton and leather a comforting reminder of the differences in the timelines.

"I..." his voice felt rough, his throat as though he'd been screaming. He didn't remember shouting that loudly, before. "I can't... Angeal, I  _can't afford_ to not go back." There was desperation in his voice, and some distant, hated part of his mind told him that  _mother wouldn't want you sounding like that, you have to be strong, you have to-_ but his mother was  _dead_. Or he remembered her death, at least, and he wasn't sure what was worse - that he knew that she was alive again, or that he wasn't sure that he  _cared._ "It isn't even just about Wutai. There are - things going on. _Things have been done which cannot be undone, and events are in motion which cannot be stopped._ " 

The last words came far easier than any of the rest. Although perhaps that was fitting. They were, after all, the words of the Prisoner, from the current main production of LOVELESS in Midgar.

Someone, whoever it had been, had remembered to take a manuscript away with them in the evacuation. The troupe had been different, the theatre a threadbare excuse for one, with a hodgepodge of props and costumes rather than the expensively perfect replicas that he had been so used to seeing, but the lines had remained the same.

"Not even just about Wutai- then what  _is_ going on?" Something tickled at the back of Genesis' mind, almost a thought, but not quite anything more than a bad feeling, yet. "If it's something to do with why Hollander's been even worse than before since you left-"

_Hollander-_

_And if he thinks that-_

_No!_

"Angeal, I-"  _I need to tell him everything._

"Genesis, if there's something dangerous going on, what we need to do is to tell someone who has the power to actually do something about it. We're SOLDIER. We aren't special ops. We aren't _Turks_."

Had he said something aloud, without meaning to? Or had Angeal merely gathered from everything he both had and had not been saying? Either way, it didn't matter so much as the fact that he felt the need to shake his head, a cynical smile finding its way into his mouth.

"The Turks would have to report to the President sooner or later, Angeal," he said, unable to look his friend in the eye as he sought to tear down his entire world for the second time. "And the President would do nothing. After all, it _is_ the President who authorised it all."

...

_"And how do you think that you would be treated, upon your return? How do you think they would see you? As a SOLDIER worthy of respect? Or with suspicion, because they know that you might know the truth that they had wanted to keep from us all this time?"_

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know the story of “Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object”, right? This was easier in the original timeline. Too bad ‘easier’ doesn’t mean ‘better’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, everyone! This is exactly one entire year (almost to the day, if I'd just been able to finish this a few hours ago over here) to when this was published!
> 
> It kind of feels like an anniversary, or a birthday. Sweet sixteen and eleven. 
> 
> Congratulations, SM and Genesis, we’ve made it this far. Now let’s keep going from here.

The words didn't immediately sink in, let alone make sense.

Angeal opened his mouth to say something along the lines of how he'd expected Genesis' theories to stick to LOVELESS, not branch out into treasonous conspiracies... but the words died in his throat before he could say them.

 _He reminds me of someone_ , Zack had said. Recently, at that. Comparing Genesis to someone who'd been shell-shocked from war. At the time, Angeal had wondered at that - they'd seen the frontlines for more years than Zack had been in SOLDIER, and perhaps Genesis had been like that in his first few real fights against other human beings, but that'd been  _years_ ago.

Angeal had put the idea away somewhere in his mind, because it had felt like naive concern over someone who didn't need to be worried over. The Firsts were older, more mature, more experienced - they could all handle themselves.

But then, he'd also thought that Genesis would  _tell_ them if something was wrong.

Clearly, he'd been wrong about that.

He was starting to think that perhaps, he was wrong about other things, too. 

"...Maybe you should tell me what you mean by that. But I'm starting to guess that's why you sent Zack away. Am I right? You think it's something that could put him in danger."

"You have  _no idea,"_ Genesis said with a huff - one that reminded him far too much of a specific incidence which had coincidentally  _also_ happened in Wutai.

They'd been Firsts when it'd all come to a head, although only barely by a few months; nowhere near enough to go far enough up the chain of command and be  _believed_ when their report included the fact that they'd found out how their superior officer was actually a double agent working for Wutai. Especially not when Sephiroth had been in a different part of the country.

The entire convoluted scheme to get the man caught had been Genesis' idea, and although he'd spent most of the time enjoying himself far too much, there'd been moments when Angeal had found he wasn't the only one wondering if something was going to go wrong, that they were going to get caught, and they were going to wind up dead.

"...And it has to do with Hollander, somehow." Genesis' head snapped up, eyes wide and glowing brighter than he'd thought was normal for just the dim light they were in. "Don't look at me like that - it was pretty obvious just by the way you reacted when I just brought his name up earlier."

Genesis sighed, and reached his arm up to worry at his left shoulder, the way he had ever since the incident in the training room back in August. Only two and a half months, if that, and it'd somehow already become a reflexive action on Genesis' part; Angeal wondered if he even knew he was doing it, at times.

"Hollander... is a large part of it, yes. More so because of what he's caused, and the events that he would set in motion, than anything."

And there it was again - the jaded, bitter tones that Genesis took on at times. Coupled with something else, something that Angeal could almost recognise now that the event was fresh in his mind.

"I thought you trusted Hollander, though," he said.

Carefully. 

Genesis _laughed_ , a harsh sound that grated on his ears. It sounded off;  _wrong_ , somehow, as though the person sitting across from him wasn't truly the Genesis he knew, that he'd grown up with, that whatever had happened had changed him, beyond anything he had thought to fear.

" _Trust_ Hollander - I could  _trust_ him to be a coward who thinks nothing of himself. I could _trust_ him to be exactly what he is - a scientist who cares only in terms of how successful, how  _perfect_ , the results of his  _experiments_ are."

The vehemence behind the words was what took him off guard, even though it was far from the first time Genesis had expressed how little, well...  _trust_ , he had in scientists. Especially since that incident. Genesis shook his head, the bitter expression only barely lighter.

"What Hollander _wants_ is to be able to get back at Shinra for rating both him and his work as lesser than Hojo. For not giving him the respect he believes he deserves."

Perhaps for the first time since Zack had left them, Genesis' eyes sought out his. Not for the first time, he felt that something was off kilter, because although he had seen Genesis take things seriously before, he hadn't seen anything like  _this._

And then, he looked away, as though even that much eye contact, that much honest connection, was too much. He leaned back against the tree again, the hand that had been at his shoulder now reaching up to cover his eyes as he let out a sigh.

" _My friend,"_ he heard Genesis begin under his breath, in that absent-minded way that he quoted that play of his, " _the fates are cruel. There are no dreams, no honour remains... the arrow has left the bow of the Goddess."_  

And then, the hand came down, and something settled over his friend, then - but Angeal couldn't say for sure if it was determination, or  _resignation_ , to whatever he'd made his mind up on. Whichever it was, they would simply have to live with the consequences. 

"The first time I trusted Hollander," Genesis said slowly, in the way that he did when he was trying to pick his words out with far more care than usual, "I was young, and naive. I thought that the world owed me everything, so of course, I had no expectations that the world might not see me in the same way... that the world might have expectations of its own." Genesis' lip curled up in the way that it did when he found something darkly amusing. Angeal was used to that. The concerning thing was that instead of being aimed at some poor unfortunate soul, there was nothing to suggest the morbid attitude wasn't aimed directly at Genesis  _himself._ "The second time I trusted Hollander... was when I was foolish and desperate, and had nowhere else to turn. When I had  _nothing left_ , and still there was nothing he could give me aside from false hope and lies."

"But that... that doesn't make  _sense_ , Genesis. None of this does! You've never been in that kind of situation, he's only just started making himself an unwanted presence on the SOLDIER floor, so how  _could_ it have? And if it's got so much to do with Hollander, then that hardly begins to explain  _this_ sort of behaviour."

"Mm, that would be true, if only everything were so easy. My friend... I've been lying to you for a long time. Perhaps far too long. It's time I told you the truth."

...

_"Shinra's been lying to us for as long as they could get away with it - your mother, my parents, the entire town was built on Shinra's money, Angeal. They knew who we were from the moment we stepped foot into Midgar. They could have told us what we were, but no one did. Instead, they hid us away among all of the other SOLDIERs, and hoped that their dirty secrets would never find the light of day."_

_"My mother would never-!"_

_"Your mother is just as complicit as everyone else! If not more! Face the truth, Angeal. You can run from it all you like, but eventually... it will catch up with you."_

_..._

Genesis had wished, for the longest time, that it wouldn't have to come to this. 

Telling the truth, after all, meant opening himself up to everything that could go wrong. If he spoke without thinking and forgot to remember how this news had affected Angeal before, if he let his emotions get the better of him at the wrong moment - everything he had worked for up until now could go to ruin.

And yet -  _the arrow has left the bow of the Goddess,_ indeed. What had been said had been said, and he had made his choice. He couldn't go back and change things so that he had a little more time, a little longer to figure out how to choose those all-important words that wouldn't make Angeal so conflicted that he would...

"How long?" He blinked, lost for a moment. "How long have you been  _lying to us_ , Genesis?"

Oh,  _that._

"Since I came to during my fight with Sephiroth in the training room, of course. Or had you forgotten already how almost everything that had changed about me started from that point?"

"You mean, the time it looked like you were trying to  _kill_ him for a good minute? More like, how  _could_ I forget. If I hadn't come between you that day-"

"It would have been good for exactly none of us. In my defence, as confused as I was, I was convinced that  _he_ was trying to kill  _me_." _It isn't as though I didn't have good reason to believe that, either,_ he thought dryly, able to remember all too easily now what he had just come from prior to that. "It's hardly like I remembered what was going on. You have my thanks for that, by the way," he added, offhand. 

"Wait, so - you're saying you've got memory problems?"

Genesis stared for a moment, and then sighed, frustrated. It was hardly as if Angeal could be faulted for a few misunderstandings, but that didn't make it any less aggravating to deal with.

"If I had 'memory problems', then I'd hardly have remembered who either of you were, would I?" he asked in a scathing tone, not expecting or requiring a response to that. "How clearly can  _you_ remember the first time the three of us snuck in there?"

"That was years ago. I hardly see how that's relevant to what's going on here and now-"

"And yet, that's precisely my point. was, as you say,  _years ago._ I haven't been lying about my loyalties - I'm loyal to SOLDIER and everyone in it, if not more so than before. But whether you believe me or not, it's just like I said. The Goddess simply appears to have a questionable sense of humour concerning her... timing."  _Any other time would have been better. Straight from one fight to the death with Sephiroth and into another - then again, the look I remember her giving me suggested a challenge. And nothing worth having has ever been easy._ "She sent me into the past, Angeal."

A glance over at Angeal showed his face to have fallen into a conspicuously flat expression.

"I thought you were going to take this seriously, Genesis. Not start spouting out excuses that don't even make sense."

"It isn't an excuse, and if you think it doesn't make sense, then you're welcome to try having been in my shoes for the past couple of months!" He pushed back from the tree, getting to his feet once more from the need to move, to pace, to  _do something._ The sound of leaves flying underfoot broke some of the tense silence that held the air when neither of them were talking. "Ten years, Angeal. And the Goddess saw it fit to send me  _back._ "  _Me, of all people. She should have sent Cloud._ Cloud, who had no such ties to so many of these people, and no reason to believe that they would look at him with- "Why..." He stopped, dragging a hand down his face. "Why do you think I lied? I know how things went last time. I couldn't...  _can't_... risk losing."  _Everything. You. Sephiroth. Zack. Even Cloud, and Tifa. They aren't dead - they didn't die - but if anything goes wrong - I will be the one to blame._ "Not again."

...

_"You've changed. The Genesis I knew would never say anything like this."_

_Angeal took a step back. His fists were clenched, his head hung low, angled away from Genesis, even though all he could possibly see would be the forest floor._

_Genesis huffed bitterly._

_"That's what happens when you find that everyone you thought you could place your faith in has betrayed you, has caused every problem imaginable. When the only ones who even might have a chance of ensuring that I don't die a slow and painful death are the very ones who caused my degradation in the first place." The sounds of battle were bound to wear out sooner or later. Sephiroth was in the area as well, he knew. They had little time. "Come with me, Angeal."_

_"What?"_

_"You're the only other one like me. Besides, I can't imagine you living on in Shinra like this. Fighting for the very ones who caused us to be nothing more than monsters."_

_"I..."_

_..._

"And if I told Shinra what you've just told me, then what? For all I know, you were hit on the head during that fight and you've been suffering  _brain damage_ ever since. Do you even  _realise_ how you've been sounding? Like someone who's read too many books about made up materia uses."

"If you told Shinra," Genesis said, putting all of his effort into keeping his voice steady, "then you would never see me again. That's no threat - I mean every word. I'm  _trusting_ you."

_Just like I did when we were children, and you were the only one I told about the caves._

Angeal groaned, and put a hand to his head, making Genesis wonder if the same thought had occurred to him, too.

"Trusting me to - what? Go back and not tell anyone about any of this? Trust you on your word on something like  _this_? I... Genesis, I  _want_ to trust you. But there's more to it than that, and you know it. There has been ever since we were accepted into SOLDIER."

"You want proof, then. Some manner of evidence." The words  _then perhaps you could ask your mother_ were so close to his tongue, but that was the last thing that would help. At some point, it might become necessary to talk with, perhaps even explain things to Gillian Hewley; but not, however, now - not so soon. Not like this. The memory of finding Angeal coming out of his home, the smell of poison and death emanating from inside, was its own warning. "And if I give it to you, what then?"

"You don't seem sure that you  _do_ want me to believe you-"

"What I  _want_  is to know that no matter what I tell you, _you_ won't do anything you'll later regret. Or that will make  _me_ regret sharing this with you."

It was so easy - too easy - to remember his impotent rage at finding that all there was left of Angeal were a few feathers, and the signs of a fight. Too late, however. Too weak, too caught up in his own degradation, too  _late._

_Like I let it last time. When all you had were your broken ideals, and shattered loyalties._

"All right - fine. I'll humour you."  _Wonderful._ "In the - hypothetical - situation where my friend has  _time travelled into the past_ , I have to ask... how? And why  _you?"_

"Like I said. The Goddess sent me. And as to why me? Honestly, I sometimes wonder that myself. Not that I don't have my own theories, of course."

"Of course," Angeal echoed, not sounding as though that had made any more sense to him, either. After all, it wasn't as though Genesis knew the details himself to be able to explain adequately, which was its own source of frustration. "Such as?"

"I was in the right place at the right time. She believes in me. Or... I'd like to think that she does," he added.

The Goddess had rejected him the first time he had presented himself to her at long last, made her disappointment known. Somehow, he doubted that she had forgotten, even this many years on. And yet, the fact still remained that he was  _here._ That had to count for something. 

"It's... funny, come to think on it."

"What is?"

"That not all that long ago, all you'd talk about was trying to figure out what that play meant. The gift... the Goddess herself. And for a while now, you've changed your tune. It's almost like you started to aim yourself toward something else, but I couldn't begin to say what."

Genesis couldn't help but smile - and briefly waved a hand through the air.

"It took me long enough to figure it out, yes. But I can safely say that if I hadn't, then I would not be speaking with you now."

"And yet," Angeal countered, sounding vaguely amused, "you could just be delusional."

"If  _that_ were true," Genesis bit back, markedly not so amused at all at that insinuation - especially after his own experiences with things... _not being right_ in his own mind, "then Hollander wouldn't be nearly so fascinated in why my injury healed as quickly as it did without his help, to say nothing of certain  _other_ matters." 

Angeal shook his head, seeming to have decided to leave that point alone for the time being, which was fair enough. To delve into the facts of degradation meant to delve into  _why_ he had been degrading - and he wasn't ready to explain that yet.

The unavoidable truth, of course, was that he would have to, sooner or later... whether he wished it known or not.

"What I still don't get is why you'd  _have_ to," Angeal said, making a pointed gesture as he did so. "Apart from the science department being riled up over  _something_ , I can't see any reason why anyone would  _need_ to time travel. If that were even possible, of course. The world isn't in any danger, Genesis."

"Isn't-" For a moment he was struck dumb with the sheer amount of irony and ignorance in that statement.  _Not in any danger._ He turned on his heel, paced several feet away, and then turned back around and paced all the way back just to point a finger at Angeal's chest. "The world is by far in enough danger, Angeal, you're simply so close to the epicentre you don't realise we're living a ticking time bomb!"

"Don't you mean 'living in'? Or 'next to'?" Angeal said, a hint of curiosity in his eyes before he shook his head. "Unless you're talking about-"

"No, I meant exactly what I said." He added one last poke, just for good measure, before letting his hand fall away again. "Although either of those would suffice, I suppose." Given the nature of the reactors, as well as the problem of  _Sephiroth_... they sufficed all too well. 

"You  _still_ aren't making any sense, and you  _still_ haven't explained what it was about Hollander you you were so desperate for me to not-"

Genesis turned away, schooling his expression, closing his eyes against the onslaught of deja vu.

"I meant...  _exactly what I said,_ Angeal.  _We_ are the ticking time bomb - Hollander was the head of two teams. The ones who created the first SOLDIER prototypes." His mouth was going dry, but he carried on regardless. Had the forest stilled? Every sound it made was loud enough for it. "Human experimentation.  _That_ is what SOLDIER -no, what  _Shinra_ is built on."

He waited, just a heartbeat or two more, and walked slowly away. No sudden movements. Angeal had... not taken this well the first time around. There was no reason for him to believe it would be any easier this time. 

"No, that can't - the first time we even knew of Shinra, it was-"

"When we were young, as children. I should know. I was there too." He breathed. Forced himself to take those breaths evenly, in spite of the way that his hands were clenched into fists at his sides. "Banora was - is still, I suppose - always under Shinra control, from well before we were ever born."

The implication -  _your mother knew, she always knew, she was just as complicit in this as everyone else_ \- lay just under the surface. Angeal wasn't an unintelligent man. He would never have reached First if he wasn't. Genesis would never have kept him around, if he hadn't been.

"Genesis, you... how would you even have  _learned_ any of this?"

"I told you before," he said with a gesture, "Hollander only cares about the results of his experiments... and his own bitterness at Shinra for not getting the recognition he sees himself as deserving. So of course when what should have been an inconsequential wound never healed properly, that... gained his attention." 

His hand found its way to his shoulder no matter that he knew the pain was no longer there, no matter that even the itch from the prolonged healing had faded away to the temperamental ache and a sensitivity that he had become more used to up until it had been, essentially, reopened.

"But you said that  _healed."_

"It did. This time. Because after nearly a decade of my body fighting against itself, I finally found a way to reverse the effects of the degradation."

There were sounds behind him - the rustle of leaves, shoved aside by boots. Angeal backing away.

Genesis didn't stop him. Perhaps he should, he wondered, especially in case his old friend decided that nothing had swayed him to belief. But he didn't.

"You said earlier that you trusted him... when you were naive, and when you were _desperate_."

In the distance, a bird sang, the trills of its song echoing through the trees. A moment later, and the beating of its wings could also be heard as it flew away.

He found himself wishing that it were that easy, to fly away, to be free.

For a bird, perhaps - but just as he was no angel, nor was he a bird. He was SOLDIER, with the honour that came with the title of First.

"I thought myself a monster, you know," he said instead. The hole in the back of his coat gaped, tell-tale, the sides of it flapping with his every movement and with each sigh of the wind. "That they had made me  _into_ one."

There was no response, no reply. Then-

"And you're saying-  _this_ is..." There was a single  _thud_ , startling him enough to make him turn, to see Angeal on his knees. "How do you expect me to believe this? To react? You're telling me a horror story, and you said we -  _we_ , Genesis. That means that if you thought you were a monster, then-"

"I was a monster for what I  _did_ , Angeal. Not as much what I  _am._ Not nearly so much as I had convinced myself. I learned  _that_ the hard way... and slowly, at that."

_My soul, corrupted by vengeance... except that I was never the only one who endured torment, was I?_

_Forgive me, my friend._

He brought a single hand up to his face, the same hand that had previously been resting at his shoulder. The motion was unnecessary - the action was one that he could do reflexively, in his sleep, unconscious... and yet, for all the ease in the world, it was something to focus on, a channel for his thoughts and worries much as his sword was for his magic.

His arm snapped out, and black feathers floated softly to the forest floor.

...

_"That reminds me, how did you manage to mess your coat up that badly?"_

_Genesis had barely responded - a flick of the eyes, and that was all._

_"Nibel dragon."_ _If the words sounded practiced, rehearsed, that was because they were. He'd known, ever since Vincent had woken him in the Mansion, that there would be questions. "It isn't even that bad. If anything, I'd say the burn marks add some extra flare, wouldn't you say?"_

_Angeal had shaken his head, and for a moment Genesis had felt the nostalgia wash over him, a reminder of times gone by when there had been no secrets between them._

_"Only so long as that fan club of yours doesn't start trying to burn leather to try and copy you."_

_He'd had to blink, casting his memory back, before he remembered - such a minor, small detail, and yet how could he have forgotten? Much like a woman in the marketplace who had looked up when Cloud had called his name, yet whose face was entirely unfamiliar to him._

_"I won't make any promises there. It isn't my responsibility what grown adults decide to do. I don't control them."_

_..._

Feathers passed across Angeal's line of vision.

 _The hole in his coat_ , he found himself thinking, when he looked up, around the rush of white noise in his ears at the sight of what was clearly a wing coming from, and obviously attached to, the man he'd grown up with.

 _Banora... under Shinra's control?_ It wasn't exactly impossible, it was hardly as though the small village had  _no_  ties to Shinra at all. Unlike Zack's Gongaga, before the'd put the reactor in - and even afterwards, to an extent.

On their own, they were facts that could have been explained away, for any number of reasons.

Put together, and...

That was the thing. Genesis had outright  _said_ what it all meant - but he had no idea what to  _do_ with any of that.

He had no idea what to do with  _himself_ , either.

"-geal?" There were sounds - fabric and feathers - and his eyes began to find it hard to focus on the middle distance they had become so attached to. On the one side, a gloved hand reached out and touched his arm. On the other, something large and dark obscured what little light there was, leaving them both in deeper shadows. "Angeal? You can get through this.  _Wings of light and dark spread afar - she guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting._ "

 _LOVELESS_ again, then. He couldn't help but smile, just a little, past the terror of  _not knowing who he was anymore._

In some ways, at least, Genesis hadn't changed at all. He just had to hold onto that.

"I - suppose you meant that literally, then."

He was rewarded with a bark of laughter. 

"Flying isn't too bad, once you get used to it." 

" _Don't-_ "

"You asked me why I would have been sent back. To be honest, I don't care what happens to Shinra." The words struck him, even though by this point, after all he had heard, he had been half expecting Genesis to say something to that effect. "But you've always said that a hero needs to have dreams, as well as honour, and -  for these past months... my only goal has been to ensure that we all make it out of this  _alive._ "

Angeal looked up, to Genesis' face and into his eyes as they flickered in the mix of dim light and what should have been their normal mako glow, yet something felt off-

 _Something feels wrong_ , Zack had said.

Genesis was looking at him, and for the first time, Angeal realised that Zack was  _right._ In the most horrifying way.

This close, it was hard to miss the dark circles under his friend's eyes... nor the changed way that he wore his expressions, giving the impression of someone several years their senior.

_He's telling the truth._

The realisation hit him suddenly, and yet at the same time, as though it had been waiting patiently for him to come to it.

_Gods help us all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, welcome to the club, Angeal. 
> 
> I had a fun time writing all this, carefully trying to balance "he doesn't want to cause history to repeat itself" and "but Genesis is a natural disaster of a man with a goddess-awful temper". As seen, he still isn't that great at being, uh, able to explain it without causing at least some damage.


	17. Chapter 17

_"So - what are you going to do now?"_

_"Why?"_

_The words, 'So that you can inform Shinra and have them hunt me down', hung unspoken in the air. Genesis' tone was more than enough for that._

_"I... don't know. But I... can't... I don't know what to think."_

_"I'm going to Banora," came the words, clipped and fast. "You can go back to Shinra and play the part they gave, you... or you can come with me, and find out the truth. It's your choice, Angeal. But you don't have time not to choose quickly."_

...

"So." Angeal let the word hang in the air. It was hard enough finding the mental space to think around the swirling thoughts of how everything made at the same time far too much, and far too little, sense. Slotting the new information into the places where things just hadn't added up before was one thing, and yet... "what are you going to do now?"

Genesis' head snapped up. 

Once Angeal had managed to find some beginning of a sense of balance again, Genesis had backed off, just enough to be sat facing him with hardly a few feet between them. Enough space to stretch a leg in front of him and yet at the same time, keep that oversized -  _human-sized_ \- wing of his curled around them on that side. 

In some ways, it seemed as though nothing had changed at all. Almost, if anything, as though Genesis had become less tightly coiled.

In other ways, in the tightness and widening of his eyes at Angeal's words that made him wonder if he'd said something wrong, it was all too clear that there would be no denying that there were discrepancies between the Genesis he had once known, and the one sitting there in front of him.

"Hopefully, exactly the same as I'd already been doing. Come to an understanding with Wutai, form a plan of some kind for how they need to move forward. I wasn't exactly here last time, so I can't say I know all the details of how  _that_ went." He looked away. "I wasn't exactly paying attention then, either." There was something dark in his expression that Angeal found it hard not to be concerned over. Even more so when he realised that he'd seen that expression  _before._ And he still didn't have nearly enough context for what it meant, either. But a moment later, and Genesis' eyes were back on him, and the darkness had gone. "Go back to Shinra."

"You're... still going back?"

The wry expression Genesis sent him for that seemed... oddly amused. Oddly, given that Angeal was hardly joking here. It was, after all, a question he needed an answer to.

"What did you expect me to say? There's still far too much I need to do there. To keep an eye on." He sighed, and the black wing folded in, closer to Genesis' body. It was a strange effect, and one that reminded him of nothing much more than an injured bird. "People."

"And by 'people', you don't just mean your friends, do you."

The wing shifted, Genesis' eyes glinting cold and hard, and tired. 

"Hollander. Hojo. Lazard. The President himself." There was a pause in the list of names, and then he continued. "You. Zack. Sephiroth. And... others. I don't even know for certain how the story will unravel itself, this time around, but...  _even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return._ I need to  _be there_ , Angeal. Everything that went wrong in the world before, was because I  _wasn't there._ "

Something about the way that he said that, made Angeal's blood run cold.  _Again._

Not to mention...

"Sephiroth, the way you said his name just now, and... earlier, you said something about..."

"Quite so." There it was again, that darkness. Something about the tone, a twist in his friend's face, that made him wonder just what had  _happened_. "Like I told you, there were two teams. Hollander was the one in charge of the first. Hojo led the other. One resulted in us, the other... in Sephiroth."

The numbness that Angeal had thought was beginning to dissipate came back with a horrified vengeance. 

It made sense. That was the worst thing - that it made  _sense._ He wished, more than anything, that it didn't. And yet if it didn't, Genesis would be spouting nonsense and still have a mutation that looked, and apparently was completely just as effective as, a wing.

 _There's no honour in this - in any of this,_ he found himself thinking. He let out a shaky breath. And to think, not even a few  _minutes_ ago, he'd had no idea - but then, of course he hadn't. 

His hands ached, he realised. They ached, and they were dirty, and it was only now that he realised that he had been holding onto clumps of dirt. They shook, too, as he made attempts to clean them off, made only somewhat easier by the fact that he'd chosen to wear gloves as a part of his uniform. 

And now, his mind was focusing on how much harder it would have been to get the dirt out of his fingernails, rather than  _and how would Sephiroth take this news?_

It was easier. Simpler. 

 _Not well,_ said the part of his mind that was reacting properly. 

Something else, another memory of  _this_ Genesis' first moments after coming, or so he said, back in time, came back to him - Genesis reacting to Sephiroth's presence as a  _threat_. Which had always felt wrong, somehow, even when he hadn't had any context behind the situation at all; now, however...

'Wrong' simply didn't even begin to cover it. They were  _friends_ \- SOLDIERs and Shinra employees, yes. Colleagues and coworkers in a structured work environment, that too - but he had never thought that the three of them could-

And yet. Not even a few minutes ago, he'd said. In as many words.

Genesis stood, that wing of his stretching out as if to counterbalance him and give an extra edge, before disappearing in a flurry of feathers as he reached out an arm to help Angeal stand.

"How are you feeling?"

Angeal winced, caught somewhere between laughing and wanting to find something that no one would mind if he was markedly violent toward, enhanced strength and all.

"Like I've just eaten over-ripe dumbapples." His stomach was in enough knots for it. "Like I've gone several rounds in the training room. Or both."

The look Genesis gave him was appraising, as though measuring him up to something - the other Angeal he'd known, perhaps? - but there was amusement, too. 

"We still need to get back to camp, and hope that Zack hasn't made too much a nuisance of himself while we were gone," Genesis said as Angeal took the offered arm and hauled himself up by it. "Although knowing him, I'm sure it's far more likely that he's simply befriended everyone there by now."

"You know," Angeal said, measuring his words carefully, "I've been curious about that. Just how well  _did_ you know Zack?"

His eyes narrowed when Genesis tensed up in that familiar way that said he'd  _hit a nerve._ A shadow falling across his face.

"Well enough. And we had enough people in common, eventually. Zack Fair is a good SOLDIER, and a good person, Angeal. And he believes in _you_ , so you'd best not let him down."

Angeal shook his head, filing away yet another one of Genesis' implications to go over when everything didn't feel quite so  _raw._

"In case you hadn't noticed, I think he's started to believe in you as well, now. So perhaps you should take your own advice."

Genesis' expression of dumbfounded shock was enough to give him the strength to take the first few steps - literally and metaphorically - back to normalcy. Back to the camp. To Shinra.

...

The way back to camp was one that he knew far too easily to take too long, each step feeling as though it sped time up just a little more. In many ways, Genesis felt like nothing more than the man who had gone down into the depths of the underworld in order to retrieve his love, only to be prohibited from turning back to make sure that they were still there; Angeal was hardly his lover, but a similar enough sense remained that if he turned, then he would find himself alone in the Wutaian forests once more.

That now the moment had passed, if he mentioned any of the things that had transpired back there, he would be met with the same confusion and disbelief as they had begun with.

His mind filled the time by helpfully filling his vision with images of the past - the past he had left behind. 

_That should be where they first found my Copies. That would be where I summoned Ifrit to deal with Zack._

He hadn't watched everyone leave, back then. He had waited while Angeal had hesitated over whether to go back to them or not after all, to tell them something, perhaps. Until the sound of the helicopter leaving had cut everything short.

But now, it was almost as if he could see their ghosts - echoes of the people he'd left behind in his original timeline - as he walked back, the sound of Angeal's boots behind him the only thing to cut through the illusion.

Zack, so sure that Angeal wouldn't leave him like that. He'd even heard, hadn't he?  _Angeal would never do that,_ Zack had said. Had been so sure he'd known the man.  _Trusted_ him.

Sephiroth, leading the way silently, keeping everything coiled tightly inside-

 _You did this,_ a voice said that sounded like, at the same time, both and neither of them.  _You're the reason their trust was broken._ Or perhaps it sounded like Cloud.  _What do you even think you're trying to_ _accomplish, anyway? All you've ever done is drive people away and apart._ And another, though he was hardly surprised at the idea of Tifa voicing such things.

"Genesis?"

The hand on his shoulder, however, grounded him - and the voice saying his name was entirely Angeal, and no one else. The faint feeling of the world becoming just so much white noise began to fade as he remembered how to breathe again, with everything coming into the sharp focus of a SOLDIER's enhanced senses.

"We aren't too far now," he said, not acknowledging what had just happened in the slightest. 

His legs wouldn't move, however. SOLDIERs were supposed to have a much higher resiliency to sickness, to poison and disease, something that he had only truly received after his encounter with the Goddess had cured him of his degradation. An irony that had never escaped him. That he had only become a true SOLDIER well after his desertion... and perhaps, only after he had realised what being SOLDIER actually  _meant_ , above whatever Shinra had tried to make it about.

"Something happened here, didn't it?"

And yet, he felt nausea, settled in the pit of his stomach. A feverish shaking felt in the tips of his fingers.

He closed his eyes, and remembered that Zack would be - or should be, he hoped - waiting back at the camp, because there were no Copies, there had been no desertion, and there would be no helicopters to take them away and back to Midgar until the mission was completed. If not by him, then by someone else.

It helped, but only barely, with the reminder of the near-monumental task ahead of him.

"The beginning of the world's end," he was able to say eventually.

 _Another world's end,_ he corrected himself. The world he'd left behind. 

No, not even that.

The world he'd been _entrusted_ with.

"Zack's waiting," Angeal reminds him. 

Genesis nods, and puts one foot in front of the other again.

...

_His first trip into Wutai after a good decade, give or take, had been one he wishes he hadn't needed to make. Not simply because of how Yuffie had glared knives and daggers at him the entire way there and he had almost killed the brat of a girl several times over, but-_

_He had recognised the terrain as they had made their way there as a group, in the muggy heat of mid-summer that made his hair stick on end in the most awful ways, something he hadn't missed at all from his youth. Every so often, the after-effects of one battle or another had been visible still on the landscape, a fact that would perhaps have given him pride, but now only served as a reminder of those he had served, like a loyal attack dog._

_And the capital - he had been there, when the two sides had once still been willing to make attempts at communication. He, Sephiroth, and Angeal had been... a show of strength. They had understood that much even then._

_The city now showed the aftereffects of destruction several times over._

_The war._

_Meteorfall, and the lifestream._

_Even now, relatively untouched as they had been by the events themselves, the ancient city was full of refugees from towns that had been raided by Deepground - and more than once, he had seen someone look back at him with the sickly glow of one who must have only recently been weaned off of the cocktail of mako and Goddess alone knew what, that had created a Deepground Soldier._

_They had taken him, after all, he would hardly have been surprised at the idea that they had never stopped simply taking, no matter that not everyone could refuse as he had._

_"It won't work," Yuffie had huffed, several days ago. "I thought materia would fix the Geostigma, but nothing really did until he got what he wanted, and then Cloud took him out, like_ that _."_

_She'd punched the air, as if to reenact a battle she seemed to have no true sense of. If what Genesis had heard was true, it was unlikely that fists had been used at all in this fight, when the talking could be done with swords._

_"You also had no idea what you were dealing with until it had already come into your houses and thrown away everything you held dear - or at least, made a decent attempt at it. I may not have a scientific mind as such, but I do know more about the Jenova Project and how it relates to the lifestream and the cells of living organisms than literally anyone else alive... save, perhaps, for those who are still alive and either do not understand or would refuse to help."_

_"You keep saying that, but how much help's it really gonna be? You think materia's going to fix it, but we don't even know what's going on now, just like we didn't back then-"_

_"And that would be where you are wrong. If I am right, then... materia is simply the crystallised memories of the lifestream itself. No matter if the materia is taken away, or if it is destroyed, the memory is not." He had gestured, a wave of dismissal when trying to explain the concept to someone who appreciated what materia could do, but not the finesse of it. "The lifestream theory revolves around the idea that nothing is ever truly destroyed, but simply returns back to the lifestream, does it not? Energy... memories, they're simply recycled."_

_"And that's why you want to go to Wutai?"_

_"Like I said, materia use is built on the mind and memory as the muscle, much as the arm is used to wield a sword. Your people were once the foremost leaders in materia use."_

_"Yeah, you should know, right?"_

_"Exactly," he said, pointedly ignoring the dark, biting tone he didn't have time for._

_He had recognised the streets, his feet knowing which way to the building that had once been the centre of commerce, the palace, and that there had been the place where the SOLDIERs had stayed during their brief visits. That street, the building at which a young girl with the most beautiful eyes and dress had given him a set of flowers, which he had merely thought were a pretty arrangement from an admirer until Angeal, far more interested in such things, had broken it to him that they had a meaning - a wish for them to quickly leave Wutai in peace._

_They were different now, of course. Full of the remnants of tacky gift shops and boarded up houses that had all the signs of being makeshift hospitals that he wanted nothing to do with, and the proud faces that stared him down... even when they did not hold within them the same barely restrained hatred that Yuffie still showed, had a sense of unyielding pride that they were still there in their homeland and their city in spite of the fact that it was a shadow of its former self._

...

He should probably have gone straight to his tent and attempted to get some sleep, knowing what extended stress and a lack of rest had done to him in the past, but instead his feet took him to the planning tent, mercifully empty apart from one man who left after only a few terse words.

Maps were laid out, hap-hazard and one on top of the other by the time he was done. One covered the entire Wutai area, another the specific region around Fort Tamblin, while others showed the sites of battles long gone, along with notes of how the victory had been won, or the ground lost.

That done, he leaned on the table, staring down onto the bits of paper that now covered it, wishing for the ability to physically pencil in his plans and ideas as he had every other time over the past two decades of his career. 

Shinra needed something to show for his efforts.

Wutai wanted to be free.

And the Goddess merely wanted him to save the world, one miracle at a time.

"...You look exhausted."

It spoke to how true the statement was, that he jumped at the sound of Angeal's voice, when he should have expected his presence. It also spoke to how much he still trusted his friend, after all these years, that his first reaction was not to reach for his sword.

"I've never worked well with deadlines," Genesis admits quietly, wincing a little at the words hitting a little too close to home. "But I  _can do this_ , Angeal. I simply need more time. Time that I  _do not have."_

In the near distance he can hear SOLDIERs laughing again, and elsewhere, the sound of pots and pans and cooking. For a moment, it reminds him of Seventh Heaven, and Tifa - but the memory is only fleeting.

He's well aware of just how careful they have to be. All it would take would be one loyal SOLDIER standing too close at the wrong moment, a voice raised a single fraction to high - and it would be over. And Angeal would be implicated.

"Then we'll do what we can with what we've got, just like we always have. I'll go with you-"

"No, you won't."

"I'm trying to  _help_ , Genesis. Nothing you try is going to work if you only keep shutting me out!"

He rolled his eyes, frustration building at what he had  _thought_ was obvious.

"And what I'm trying to say is that while I appreciate that,  _they_ wouldn't. You're too Shinra. It wouldn't work."

"Too- and  _you aren't?_ We're SOLDIER," Angeal hissed, in a clear attempt to keep his own voice down just like Genesis was. "No matter what you've been telling me-"

"SOLDIER is one thing. _Shinra_ is another. Even Rufus learned  _that,_ eventually," he added dismissively, grim satisfaction colouring his tone.

"Why do I get the strong feeling I'm not going to like a  _lot_ of what you eventually tell me."

"Because unlike me, you've always been the one with more honour and morals than sense. Which is why I need you here. With me."

_Because Goddess knows I need someone to keep me in check sometimes._

_And the last thing I need is Angeal defecting to go on a soul searching trip, only to find the wrong answers._

The man in question sighed heavily, and Genesis looked up to see him pinching his nose.

"All right, then what  _do_ you want me to do?"

"All Shinra wants to hear is news of Wutai's complete destruction or surrender. Neither can happen, but we need to angle it in such a way that they'll accept an... alternative outcome." He shook his head. Looked back at the map-covered table. "The same reason why you can't come with me is exactly why I need your help. _You_ can still think in terms of how a good Shinra SOLDIER acts. I  _can't_. Not anymore." That was something he would never be able to recover - not that he would wish to. There had been far too much naivety, along with the innocence and simplicity. "That, and keep an eye on-" he stopped, and straightened.

Something had been worrying him at the back of his mind for a while now. He wished it hadn't been, that he was wrong, and yet wasn't this the way it had always been?

The only difference was, there was no Sephiroth to blame for this. Only himself.

He walked over to the entrance of the tent, which had swung back down and shut - but not sealed shut - after Angeal had followed him in.

"Genesis, what are you-"

He carried on, reaching out for the edge of the door, and lifted it, so that they could both see the view from the tent to the rest of the camp... and Zack, still scrabbling to stand up after having been caught sat with his back to the entrance to the tent, hands around his knees and clearly listening.

And despite the clear as day insubordination, the only concession the still Second Class SOLDIER made was to cross his arms, a conflicted expression settling on his face.

"I thought you were going to, I don't know? Explain what was going on once you got back? Say, "Hey, Zack, that was all just one big misunderstanding, but everything's fine now." But you just walked right past me, and then... I figured I'd just wait out here. But, I heard..."

Genesis grimaced, his eyes darting around the rest of the camp in a matter of seconds, noting the positions of the other SOLDIERs and troops active and about. One looked over their way, and waved. He scowled until the boy's arm dropped, and he raced off to do something hopefully more useful, and less likely to get this small group that was growing far faster than Genesis was comfortable in any more danger than it was already in.

"Inside. Now."

...

Zack quickly found that whatever had happened in the time since he'd left the two Firsts back in that clearing, it'd changed things. They were quieter. Genesis looked stressed, and Angeal-

Angeal wouldn't look at him. That was the thing that hurt the most, really - more than everything he'd heard that said that these two people he'd respected so much were- that they'd... been talking like that.

His eyes were drawn away by Genesis pacing the tent in the tense, awkward silence. His hand reached up to his shoulder, before dragging his hand through his hair. For a moment, it almost seemed like he expected his hair to be longer, the way his hand paused mid-air like that. Maybe any other time, and Zack would have laughed. 

 _"Like ripping a bandage off,"_ he just about heard Genesis mutter to himself.  _"And just like that, it does't get any easier."_

Angeal's head shot up, and for the first time  Zack saw just how far from the cool, confident attitude the man was from what he was used to, which just made him more uneasy, though he wasn't sure if it was better or  _worse_ that Genesis didn't look much different - both of them looked worn thin and like they'd gone through something awful.

"What do you...?

"Genesis, no -  you can't just-!"

"Zack is just as involved in this as you are now, whether either of us like it or not - would you prefer to explain everything to him later, when you've come to terms with it yourself and we're all back in Midgar, so that the Turks can benefit as well?  _Do you?_ Because that  _is_ what would happen."

Zack shuffled his feet, caught between the frustration of feeling like he was being talked about as though he wasn't even there, and the discomfort of being both between them, and the subject of, their argument.

"That isn't fair!" 

" _None_ of this is fair, Angeal. But sometimes we just have to learn to _live_ with that." Genesis deflated with a heavy sigh. "More than that, he  _deserves_ to know. I just..."

All right - whatever was going on, they wanted him in on it. He could - he could do this, right? 

On the one hand, being SOLDIER was all he'd ever wanted, and he was  _so close_ to being First. Being SOLDIER meant he was that much closer to being the hero he'd always dreamed of being. Not to mention, both Angeal and now, more recently Genesis too, had been helping him get there.  That  _meant something._

But... on the other hadn't, so did the fact that they seemed to want to trust him on this, and he  _wanted_ to trust them. He did. He wanted to be treated like he could be trusted, like he wasn't a kid, that he was getting somewhere, that he was  _worth_ all the effort they'd put into him-

And... aside from anything else... he'd liked to think that, maybe, they were  _friends_ , somehow. That they'd enjoyed being together, even if it was just training and lessons all the time. 

He didn't... want that to have been for nothing. And if there was some way,  _any_ way, to get things back to how they had been...

"Zack?" Angeal snapped him out of his thoughts. "Genesis... I think he didn't just see your potential, back then. When he decided to help with your training." A snort somewhere between a cough and poorly disguised laughter confirmed that, which added insult to the injury. And there he'd thought- wait, what? "He'd just told me in a very convincing way that he's... from the future."

Zack stared. First at one, then at the other. 

Neither of them were laughing. Which was a shame, because this was maybe the sort of joke Kunsel might pull, but he hadn't thought the Firsts  _had_ that kind of sense of humour.

Which wasn't even  _starting_ on how they'd all been talking practically in whispers the whole time, even though the all the rest of camp was busy doing other things, and he'd turned down several tasks just to wait it out for the two of them to come back.

"A version of events as they could have happened, the way things are currently going," Genesis added helpfully. "I'd prefer to avoid a repeat performance in all aspects, if at all possible."

"Which means - I was involved in things the first time around?" Angeal looked over at Genesis. Genesis hesitated, but then nodded. Zack swallowed, feeling his palms grow clammy from the realisation that  _this_ was why they'd been arguing, and  _this_ was why Genesis had said that he "deserved" to know. "Uh... what  _kind_ of things are we trying to prevent here, anyway? And what does any of it have to do with _Wutai?"_

"Wutai," Genesis said, "has both everything and nothing to do with it. But the entire reason the two of you are here in the first place is because I'm doing something that... _technically_  isn't strictly what was ordered. As for the time I came from..." Genesis closed his eyes. "Legend shall speak of sacrifice at world's end."

A shiver ran down Zack's spine, like that saying, _someone's just stepped on your grave,_ or something like that. Which was kind of a creepy thought to have, when thinking about someone who said they'd time travelled from some future where the general ominous feeling of... generally  _everything_.

"Right, uh... I'll second that? As in the, uh - no more sacrifice. That's what you meant, right? I'm less keen on the-"

"Wutai needs to be on  _our_ side, or at the very least, still capable of standing on its own. In theory this should be easy, but two things stand in the way - they can't afford to lose face, and it wouldn't be believed if at this point, they had a sudden change of heart regardless."

Zack blinked. 

"Isn't that just... what we were sent here to do  _anyway?"_

"If that's how you want to see it, then be my guest. Raiding Fort Tamblin and forcing a surrender would admittedly be  _easy_ , but currently not the best plan for our end goal."

"At the moment," Angeal added dryly, "that sounds like it sums up just about the entire situation. There's not exactly an easy answer to any of it. As well as everyone involved being in untold amounts of danger."

"Welcome to your first real mission, Zack. Highly confidential, world-saving, and if we pull it off, I reckon we could all call ourselves heroes for it. Angeal's in, of course. What do you say?"

Angeal snorted. "As if I had any say in the matter. But, Zack... it really is up to you. You don't have to if you don't feel comfortable being in that sort of danger."

"You're kidding me, right?" Arms crossed behind his head, he rocked on the balls of his feet, bouncing for a moment. "I don't really get what's going on, but - I trust you guys, and if you say this is serious business, there's no  _way_ I'm not in! Uh, just one thing, though - when we're talking "Genesis comes from the future," just how old  _is_ he now?" He slowed down, and tilted his head to one side. "Is this a matter of a few months, a few years, decades...?"

Genesis spluttered.

"Just the  _one_ decade, thank you!"

 _Uh... whoops? I think maybe that wasn't..._   _the best thing to say._

Even Angeal laughing didn't help, because Zack was  _sure_ Angeal was laughing at him as much as Genesis, and - he really, _really_  didn't want to get on the, uh...  _older_ First's bad side.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a few days ago I said "oh, I'm going to put off posting up ch.18 when it's finished because of how everyone's going to be in KH3 hype (I know I am, and I'm still playing through, but don't spoil me) but then circumstances happened, sleep was lost, and... several thousand more words were written. Oops?

_"If you could only change one thing with all this... would you still do it?"_

_Genesis looks away from the cityscape tinted with green, a slight smile on his face as he remembers a similar conversation with someone else, some time ago. Everything seems to be the past coming back to haunt him, circling back in on itself recently, though. So this makes as much sense as anything._

_For a moment he can hear half-familiar voices passing by underneath the roof they were sat on, a familiar place to Genesis' eyes not too far from Seventh Heaven. If he wanted to, he could turn his head this way or that, and pick out where his apartment was, the place Cloud had started to rent... and if he looked far enough in that direction there, he could see Midgar._

_"Only one thing?" He turns toward Zack, and for a moment he sees a young man with bangs that fall in front of his eyes, and a custom Second's uniform that marked him out as answering directly to one of the Firsts. He blinks, and-_

_-now, the Zack sat next to him is older, most of his hair out of his face save for a few errant strands, a scar on his cheek, and First's blacks. Zack doesn't look at him, but that's fine, Genesis thinks, he prefers it this way. "I'd never be done with just one thing," he says, well aware of the irony._

_But, it's true. He has too many regrets to ever stop, and the opportunity was right there, in front of his eyes._

_He had wrongs that needed righting. Mistakes that needed fixing. Far too many of them were more than a simple work in progress._

_"So that's how you see things, huh," Zack says._

_It takes all of Genesis' willpower not to visibly wince at the dismissive tone of voice, from the one he'd inconvenienced so much, put so much pressure on, and who carried Angeal's legacy._

_"And you? It's only fair, after all."_

_"Huh? Oh - you mean, if I was the one who went back?" Zack laughed. "I guess... I have ideas, but it's... what's that word you used a lot?"_

_Genesis quirked an eyebrow, not sure what Zack was talking about, not even sure how this Zack would have heard him talk enough outside of their far from friendly encounters, to know anything outside of LOVELESS._

_"Did I ever say? I tried to read that play, you know. To get inside your head. Why you were doing all that. It... didn't work much." A pause. "Did you know, one of those fan clubs of yours put together this book, made out of everything you'd put together about that missing act? They even published it."_

_Genesis shook his head, more out of amusement at the idea, than any sort of disbelief. He'd never paid that much attention to those women back then, especially after he had split with Shinra. They'd had an idealised version of him in their heads, one that had never faded, if a few reactions from middle-aged women in Edge and Kalm were any indications._

_The reality was much harsher, and likely didn't measure up to the Genesis that they'd followed so religiously._

_"I never got through much of either of them," Zack continued. "Too much going on, you know? Couldn't... focus." And then- "That's it - academic! I mean, after all... I'm not like you, am I? You're more of a special case."_

_They sit there in silence, for a while._

_Genesis watches the pale green swirls of mako-smoke drift between the buildings and gather around Midgar, before heading out into the wastes, again. It's almost hypnotising, strangely familiar, although watching for too long causes an ache to form behind his eyes._

_The wind ruffled his hair, and it was tempting to lean into it, let his wing spread out and let the wind carry him wherever it wanted, as free as he'd ever been._

_He's jolted out of such thoughts when he feels Zack get up to stand, feet touching the thin air at the edge of the roof, and he watches as Zack brings Angeal's Buster sword from off his back with one hand, drawing it up in front of his face just like Angeal used to._

_Did._

_Again._

_"You're playing a dangerous game, you know," Zack says, and Genesis' mouth dries out. He'd heard that tone of voice before, when Zack had steeled himself for a fight he hadn't wanted to be a part of. "I beat you before," he continued, almost as if reading Genesis' mind, "and I'll do it again, if I have to."_

_Of course, he thinks to himself. Of course._

_And yet, he cannot help but almost hear the words-_

_Even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return._

_It was his sacrifice to make, after all. At least this time it would be made for the right reasons. Or so he hopes._

_The wind rises, ruffling both hair and feathers. The pressure builds, and he raises a hand to the bridge of his nose, to the spot between his eyes._

_"You know what's coming next, don't you," Zack says, swinging the heavy sword back into place._

_He screws his eyes shut from the pain now, the heel of his hand pressed against his eyelids, creating golden spots and fireworks in the darkness. A whistling, high-pitched noise in his ear that he wished would stop, pulling him off balance and dragging him into disorientation._

_He'd felt like this before - not even just once - if this was..._

_Goddess, no._

_A prayer. Even just one thing, and it would be this._

_"Genesis?" He almost didn't hear the voice. "Stay with me. You can do this, okay? You've just got to-"_

_To-?_

_To what-?_

"Genesis?"

Someone is holding him down, and for a good vicious moment all that matters is getting free of them, intent be damned, because he might feel like death has chewed him up and spat him out again not for the first or even _second_ time in his life, but he  _won't be restrained like that,_ never again,  _ever_ -

"Get ahold of yourself - before you've got the entire camp coming down on us!"

His feet are swept out from underneath him in a familiar move that he should have been able to evade and counter, but his legs instead gave way underneath him, landing him hard on his backside with a wince, and the sure knowledge that he was going to have bruises, even if just for the next few hours or so, even with his ability to heal now returned far more back to its normal - or rather, what his normal should have been - than even at his return to Midgar after his trip to Nibelheim.

He doesn't look up. He barely has the wherewithal to realise that his wing had somehow come out while he'd been thrashing around or asleep, and the extra appendage disappears, even though he misses the comfort and security of being able to curl it around him, let it hide at least part of him from view.

Angeal _._ _Angeal_ was the one who'd woken him up.

There'd been a nightmare - some details sticking out in harsh relief against the fuzzed out parts that no longer made any sense. What he did remember, was enough to make his muscles start to shake again, his stomach twist, his heart burn. 

 _"You're playing a dangerous game, you know,"_ he recalled, the older voice still clear in his mind.

The tent door was pushed aside just as Angeal started to move closer. He tensed, and by the sound of things, so did Angeal.

"Er... what even happened here?" Zack's tired voice sounded loud in his ears. "There's..." A yawn escaped the younger SOLDIER. Genesis didn't think that Zack had ever been relaxed enough to do such a thing, before. It should have felt encouraging. Instead, he merely felt that he was taking advantage of some nebulous idea of innocence he had no right to interfere with. "Feathers?"

Panic at the realisation that his wing had shed took over, forcing his eyes open to look around. Feathers were, indeed, strewn all over the place. There would be questions-

"If anyone asks, tell them there was an accident with a mis-packed experimental chocobo summon."

In the time it took for him to turn around in disbelief, Zack had disappeared again.

"Do you have  _any idea_ how mortifying that is?  _Me_ , Angeal. You're letting him tell everyone that I of all people-"

"Would you really prefer to explain to everyone that no, they're not some black chocobo you accidentally summoned that we had to hold down-" and there his body went, tensing again for no reason, "-but  _yours_. They might not think it's the full story, but given the truth, they'll  _prefer_ something like this." Angeal took a few paces in the other direction again, and then sat on the floor, his back against the simple pallet bed that'd been put up in Genesis' tent. He laughed, a vaguely hollow sound. "Remind me never to try that again, by the way. Or get on your bad side."

Genesis looked away, in an attempt to mask another flinch at the reminder. Put that way, perhaps a chance of humiliation was preferable.

Silence hung awkwardly and heavily between them, uninterrupted by the noises from outside, save for one or two oddities.

"I... don't react well to being restrained," he admitted in what he hoped was an off-handed way. 

As if things such as this happened all the time.

"I'll bear that in mind."

Angeal's tone was even and non-judgemental, even with the obvious curiosity.

"And I'll have you know, I would never force you to stay or leave against your wishes, old friend."

He never had. He had accepted, and respected, and eventually agreed to disagree to the point of understanding that since neither of them would budge an inch, then words would no longer be adequate at times. Their swords had clashed instead, then.

 _Which won't happen this time,_ he promised himself. 

"...That still doesn't explain why I came in here in the first place because I'd heard you  _screaming."_

He didn't answer. Mostly because he was only now aware of that himself; it certainly explained why his throat felt so  _raw_ , at least.

The rest of it was that he had his suspicions, and the last thing he wanted was to have to admit that no matter his intentions, no matter how he had ended up in the past in the first place... there was every possibility that he was just as much the dangerous monster that he had once been somewhere around five years ago.

 _A little longer,_ that was all he asked.  _Just a little longer._

...

Morning unfortunately dragged itself into existence slowly, and painfully. Genesis' body still had a bad habit of shaking feverishly at the least useful times, which given that they had so little time at all was of course  _all the damn time_ , and often accompanied by a splitting headache that simply wouldn't leave him in peace, making the daily rounds of having to deal with rowdy SOLDIERs and army troopers grate on his nerves more than usual.

Perhaps there was a certain sense of irony in that his one solace also happened to be the one thing he had least been looking forward to; the meeting and planning tent, which had been the scene of Zack being let in on the least believable part of his story just the previous night, would be in the middle of camp, yes, but it would also be devoid of anyone other than himself, Angeal, and Zack. Unless they specifically requested otherwise.

His PHS buzzed in his pocket, and given it was only a mail, he was sorely tempted to ignore it, just to put off having to deal with yet another problem, another person wanting to pick his brain for something, another  _deadline_ -

_"You know what's coming next, don't you."_

He stumbled, his balance shaken for a moment, vision swimming as spots danced in his eyes at the reminder of what had started this entire headache of a morning off in the first place.

"Sir?" He looked up, and into a SOLDIER's helmeted face. Somehow, he'd wound up leaning on something just to stay upright. "With all due respect, sir, you look like hell."

 _Breathe. Do not snap and send a fireball aimed at the idiot's face._  

Although perhaps a  _brave_ idiot, for saying it to his face, rather than behind his back, he had to admit.

"I'm well aware of that fact," Genesis said through gritted teeth, holding back both the headache and the cutting remarks, "SOLDIER...?"

Something about the voice seemed familiar-

"SOLDIER Second Class, Brele, Sir," came the awaited name and rank. "Brele Raphen, really, though I dunno if you'd remember a couple of barrel makers and their kid."

Genesis blinked, disoriented, the logic of knowing that in  _theory_ the people of Banora had to still be around in this time, warring with the fact that he simply hadn't thought about it, hadn't interacted with anyone other than Angeal, who'd survived long after the town had been destroyed.

Casting his mind back, he thought that perhaps he  _could_ remember a couple of older folk who'd made barrels, that they'd had a son somewhat younger than he had been; and yet that was  _twenty years ago_ , give or take. The memories were faded. Both with time and the need to  _forget._

Though, even that paled in comparison to the one singular fact that was staring him, quite literally, in the face - that SOLDIER Brele was  _here_. Now.

That he would have... 

"I mean it though, sir. If something's wrong and you need to go back, that's what SOLDIERs Hewley and Fair are here for."

It wasn't as though the idea wasn't tempting, now that it was out in the open; as he'd said, he knew full well that he likely looked like death warmed up - the irony of it not escaping him entirely, given that the last time he'd seen these men as themselves, he  _had_ been a man marked by death.

He  _could_. He could leave it to them. Perhaps have it appear that his departure from the situation was entirely out of his control, which would free him up to focus on something  _else_.

But by doing that, by essentially  _walking away-_

_"Running away, are you?"_

-he would merely be left with the exact same problem that he'd had in his original timeline, Yuffie's face coming all too easily to mind.

 _Set_ _of problems, to be more accurate_ , he thought to himself, holding back a grimace while remembering the many numerous times that he'd encountered Zack when Sephiroth was supposed to have been there... when  _he himself_ had used Zack to his own ends.

"I came here prepared to fulfil my mission, SOLDIER Brele," he said through gritted teeth, "and I do not intend to leave until I have completed it."

The SOLDIER - someone he had shared his hometown with, no matter his feelings on the place - hesitated, and then nodded.

Genesis turned toward the main meeting tent, where Angeal and Zack should be. He barely made three strides before he heard the SOLDIER's voice again.

"You should write home sometime," Brele said, the Banoran accent that Genesis had worked so hard to cover up, and that Angeal had lost more than kept, showing through a little stronger. The reminder that Banora  _was_ still standing was hard enough. He didn't need- "My ma said in her last letter she thought your folks were starting to worry, though she didn't know why. Maybe when we're all back in Midgar-"

He didn't listen to anything else he had to say.

Regardless of how his body felt, he pushed himself the rest of the way toward the meeting tent, all the way to one of the simple foldable chairs that were out and ready for him, and collapsed into it.

"Genesis? What the... Angeal? A little help here!"

Heavy footsteps, but Genesis' eyes were sore, spots dancing in his vision.

"If you say you're fine," he heard Angeal's voice say, "then I'm calling bullshit."

Genesis snorted, which was evidently the wrong thing, because-

_(His mind throwing up images of the village, of home, of the trees, of the graves-_

_-of the bodies, and his sword-_

_-dripping red.)_

-bile rose up, the intensity of the memories and what and who he'd  _been_ mixing with the pressure in and against his mind that had been causing him so much pain, and he only just made it off the chair, a vague sensation of a familiar hand on his arm, unsure if he should be relieved that he was only capable of dry retching due to not having eaten, rather than the far messier alternative.

"Genesis...?" His vision cleared slowly, but even as it did, he could make out the concern in Angeal's face. "Please, tell me, if that was..." He spoke quietly, eyes darting toward Zack for a second, "what you mentioned, before. If that's..."

He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting back the anxiety that came with the mere  _suggestion_ of what he thought Angeal was getting at.

He wasn't degrading again - he  _couldn't_ be. He was almost certain, now. Besides, he knew what had caused this, every last thing.

Shook his head, just slightly. Slow movements. Thankful for once that despite not having thought of cutting his hair since arriving in his past, it wasn't long enough that he might need it held back at times like these.

"No," he said, voice hoarse. "I was..." he winced. There was no good way to put it. "No hero.  _Before._ " Looked away, before he could see Angeal realise what this could possibly mean, for  _him_ to say such a thing. 

There was no answer, for the longest time. But despite the abiding fear that Angeal would, no matter what he might have said before, turn away from him, all Genesis could do was to use the time to get his breathing back under control, and to attempt to stop at least some of the yet worsened shaking in his muscles.

"Then..." He's startled by the fact that it isn't Angeal who speaks, but _Zack_. "That's what you're here for now, isn't it? If you did things wrong last time, you've just got to get back up and try again, no matter how many times it takes. That's what I think, anyway."

 _In case you hadn't noticed, I think he's started to believe in you as well, now. So don't let him down._ Angeal's words to him, mixed with his own.

 _Well, that didn't take long,_ he wanted to say, but in a way that wasn't true, because no matter if it made sense or not, Zack... didn't appear to be judging him.

Zack had saved him once, after all. Even after everything he'd done. After  _everything._

 _I beat you before, and if I have to do it again, I will,_ he remembered from the dream, and if anything, the words gave him some small solace, that no matter even if things went entirely wrong, he could rely on that much, at least.

"I need to get out of here," he said eventually. Not simply out of the tent, or gone a while - out of Wutai _entirely_. The mission needed to end.

"That's what we're here for, then," Angeal said, a hand coming into Genesis' field of vision to help him up, bringing attention to the fact that he'd fallen onto his knees. "Because it seems like nothing good comes from you being left to your own devices."

He winced again at the pointed jab, but reached for Angeal's hand, and let himself be pulled back up again.

...

_He could still remember the way they'd all been sitting around at the bar when the subject had been brought up._

_One minute they're talking about Corel wine, the next they're mentioning something about the Corel reactor, and it was hardly as though this had been the first time he had connected the location with Marlene's father, or the knowledge that the reactor blowing had been the cause for the loss of Barret's arm._

_It had, however, been the first time he'd heard that everyone believed that Shinra was to blame, and he hadn't been able to completely hold back a laugh, just at the sheer irony._

_He'd been used to the cold looks and glares aimed in his direction, by then, enough that they hadn't phased him. It had been early enough on that after realising who he was and what he'd done and enabled, not many of them would give him much warmer than 'faint suspicion' even at the best of times._

_"The hell you laughing at now?"_

_He could see Barret's eyes being drawn to his old SOLDIER uniform, and especially the old logo on his belt. A smile touched his mouth, unable to help just a little of the old hubris touching his pride._

_"You don't know the irony?" Of course they didn't. They were all looking at him like angry beached fish. "I wasn't there, in case you had it in mind that I had anything to do with it, by the way." He'd been getting weaker and weaker by the year, and sometimes, it had felt, by the month. If he'd been involved, he'd have been exhausted for days afterward. Not that they needed to know that. "I knew the people who were, however. Just enough to get the gist of things, at least," he added lightly, before raising his glass to his mouth again._

_"So now you're saying you knew-"_

_"Barret, wait - Genesis, what do you mean by "irony"? Or... "enough to get the gist of things?"_

_Cloud hadn't been happy either. Later, he would realise that it would have stung, the idea that someone that he had brought into the group could have bene withholding information, especially when he'd still been a potential threat, living among them on trust._

_But at the time, he'd just let his smile grow a little wider, as long as he had even something as small as this over them._

_"We only met twice," he said, drawing the words out. "Once not long after news of my desertion had spread, and once not long after the incident at Corel itself." He brought the glass up to his lips once more, wetting his throat, and allowing himself to remember. "Do you have any idea how many anti-Shinra factions there were? Not many. It was a dangerous way to exist, so of course a little networking was to be expected. Hollander was far more interested in the offers that man gave, of course," he said, distaste and bitterness flavouring the words, "but I restrained him. Hardly out of pure intentions. More to the point, Fuhito was asking for Hollander's help as a scientist, and I could hardly have him distracted when the entire reason I had deserted in the first place was so that he could find a cure so that I would stop dying."_

_He paused to finish his drink, against the flash of anger at remembering how Hollander had never, not once, had the impression in his mind that the degradation could be cured._

_"And? What's any of this got to do with what happened to Corel?"_

_"Because," said a drawling voice that even after all this time was plenty recognisable enough, "Fuhito was the old head of the first AVALANCHE. Isn't that what you were aiming at?"_

_Genesis' eyes had narrowed, a decision made in a matter of moments while the others were asking just how long Reno of the Turks had been listening in on the conversation._

_"Quite," he'd said, maintaining a genial air. "And the girl you were looking for? Elfé, was it? How did that work out for you? The last time I saw her, she still had that summons materia somehow infused into her arm."_

_"You know, I've got no idea what you're talking about, on that one."_

_"Infinite in mystery is the gift of the Goddess... far less so your attempts to lie about something I'm clearly already well aware of. She was with him both times, after all, and I know a summons materia when I see one. Given what I was able to realise from just two meetings, the most likely outcome is that she died. One way or another."_

_The atmosphere went from tense to frigid, with Reno's grip tightening on the rod he carried with him everywhere._

_"She ain't dead, yo."_

_"Oh," Genesis said, not finding the Turk's anger nearly as worrying as the others did. He'd killed Turks far more willing to fight, Turks far more desperate, than this one. "It seems you do remember."_

_Cloud's hand on his arm stops him from saying anything else. Perhaps in Cloud's mind, as much to protect Genesis and the bar as anything or anyone else._

_"Who's Elfé, Reno?"_

_Cloud's eyes darted over to Barret for a moment of some unspoken thought. Barret huffed, but backed down - likely from asking again what any of this had to do with Corel, no doubt._

_He'd hardly been wrong, earlier - there was by far too much irony in the entire situation, and just how little the subject matter_ didn't _have to do with Corel._

_"Elfé was pretty much the old boss of AVALANCHE before everything went to shit, both for them and for us. Also? What he said. Turned out she had a real powerful WEAPONS-grade summons stuck in her arm, three guesses who put that in there, first two don't count." Genesis felt Cloud tense for a moment beside him, and given the disjointed memories that had leaked through to give him his own further experiences, he could hardly say he blamed him. "Of course, once we found that out, it was our job to make sure that thing didn't end up getting summoned, you hear me? Thing that big could've wiped out most of Midgar, same as the ones everyone had to face a few months later."_

_Genesis rolled his eyes._

_"And how did that go for you? I did suggest when we first met that perhaps the safest option would be to simply take the arm off. A summons like what I felt, and she's lucky to be alive, let alone more than that."_

_Reno had grimaced, scratching the back of his neck for a moment underneath that rat's tail of hair he wore._

_"Fuhito was the one who wanted to actually summon it, yo. That bit wasn't on us. Thing needed-"_

_"Support materia - in order to stabilise it. Correct? It's hardly basic knowledge but it's hardly forgotten lore," he finished, dismissively. "Let me guess, one of said support materia... was in Corel."_

_Silence stretched in Seventh Heaven as Cloud, Tifa, and Barret slowly pieced together a series of events, and Reno watched them do so, and Genesis found himself satisfied that he finally had some context for certain things that he had known of, and always wondered about._

_"What can I say," Reno said at last. "Shit went down. That's all there is to it. And all you need to know."_

_"And the summons?"_

_Reno snorted._

_"What, you miss the whole light show or something?"_

_"...let's assume 'or something'."_

_After all, if he didn't remember, then it was likely something that took place after... then. After the caves. After he was taken._

_"Yeah? Let's just say the Turks took care of it, and that's that, alright?"_

_"That implies there was something for the Turks to take care of though... doesn't it?"_

_A moment later, Tifa nods, answering Cloud's not quite rhetoric question._

_"I think I remember something like that - not long before I found you, Cloud."_

_"Then Fuhito succeeded," Genesis had found himself saying. Based on fragmented, vague memories of half-forgotten conversations, and what Reno himself had said just mere moments ago. Fuhito was the one who had wanted to summon it._

_"Fuhito went and got himself spliced up with that materia he got his hands on, is what. And we-"_

_"What did you just say?"_

_"What, you suddenly got hearing loss or something? All I'm saying is, the guy'd been going on for years about how he wanted to 'cleanse the Planet' by 'ridding it of humans' or some bullshit like that, so I guess becoming some weird monster with scythes for arms wasn't out of the question, yo. You want details, though, you got the wrong guy."_

_"You... make it seem as though he kept his senses about him. After becoming this... monster."_

_"Huh? I told you, wrong guy for details. Sound about right though, given what I heard and all. Right up to when we got 'im good, at least. That good enough for you?"_

_Genesis could remember leaving. He could remember not talking for some time, and not taking any notice of where he was going, either, only the sensation of the wind between feathers, although the memory of actually leaving the ground was absent._

_Fuhito, a man that Genesis had not trusted even on their first meeting, had kept his mind intact upon gaining power directly from a materia summons as powerful as the one he had felt in Elfé._

_He, meanwhile..._

_Pride is lost, wings stripped away, the end is nigh... that, is the fate of a monster, he recalled himself having said once._

_Perhaps events such as those merely showed one's true nature to the world, he wondered, and if so, then what did that say about him, no matter how much he had been making attempts to regain the pride that he had lost?_

...

"This... plan of yours," Godo said slowly, as if tasting the words for their how bitter they were before letting them touch the air, "is reckless, and requires trust between us the likes of which I am not certain that you have earned, Genesis of SOLDIER. And more importantly, these are the actions of those who accept defeat, and we of Wutai are anything but."

It was two mere days later, and although there had been no further dreams of the same sort, the effects of that headache, the pressure that it had brought with it, had yet to fade completely, creating odd moments when his vision would blur or create sunspots without warning.

In some cases, the only way to move forward past the discomfort had been to push ahead in spite of it, but then - he had more than enough experience with  _that_ , no matter that he had desired to never need to again.

"Perhaps so," he admitted, "and yet, should we go through with this, one would not be the only one to have power over the other - after all, the need for such a plan rests squarely upon the fact that in order for my involvement to not be suspected, I need to return to Shinra. In which case, you would be able to ruin me just as absolutely as I could, you."  _More so,_ Genesis thought darkly,  _given that Lord Godo merely has Wutai to ensure the safety of, and I... should I lose Sephiroth's trust, the Planet itself is in danger._ "Perhaps one might see such actions as cowardly, or dishonourable... but on the contrary, I cannot."

Godo drew himself up, and Genesis noted a slight narrowing of the Wutaian noble's eyes.

"So you say, and so you have said. And yet, are those not the words of those who would feel connection with the spirits of foxes, with weasels and snakes? We are not such, we who answer to Leviathan alone."

Genesis waited until silence had once more blanketed the room, until all eyes were upon him for his response.

"Someone told me very recently," he said, reflecting back to looking at his phone's screen as the text came, "that one cannot change anything if they are dead. I see Wutai and her people, and I see people who could rebuild, who could bring Wutai back to life. But there is more than just one type of death, Lord Godo."  _Betrayal upon betrayal... I lost myself in an abyss of my own making. Perhaps, the Goddess resurrected me in more than one sense, at that time._ "This, is not death. It is courage, to pretend that your are something that you are not, to walk a path that you know you cannot survive walking indefinitely... in order to know that there will be a future for others."

"And if I should trust you and your allies, and even should no betrayals occur... if I should fall before my people are truly free?"

"Then," Genesis said firmly, meeting the other man's eyes, with his own glowing blue with determination, "we become the sacrifices in order for others to be able to fight for the Planet in our stead."  _If everything is not enough... I do at least know that I can trust them, to finish what I could not._ "But we likewise cannot believe in such an outcome. We cannot  _afford_ to believe in failure."

_Failure for Godo would mean the loss of his people, and their honour. Failure for me... would mean that I would have lost everything a second time over._

_Just because I know that the world could survive, doesn't mean I'm going to let that happen._

Lord Godo of Wutai inclined his head.

Genesis could not help his mouth twitching, not merely at the taste of victory in the air, but at feeling one small step closer to, no matter his words, not feeling as though disaster of some sort in this place lay just around the corner.


End file.
